About the Project
Supervisor: Derek Macmillan
Application deadline: 31/10/26
Interview date: November 2026
Start date: 1/2/27
UCL Chemistry Department is offering a fully funded studentship to a highly motivated candidate to start in February 2027. The student will carry out their doctoral research at UCL in the laboratory of Dr Derek Macmillan.
Glycoproteins are a highly valuable class of biotherapeutics ranging from hormones to antibodies. The presence of carbohydrates on a protein backbone confers desirable properties upon the protein to which they are attached. However, protein glycosylation is one of chemistry's great unsolved synthetic problems and despite over 100 years of carbohydrate chemistry, the biological process for their synthesis has not been replicated using organic chemistry.
Among the various alternative approaches, constructing glycosylated proteins from full-length bacterially expressed precursors, adorned with reactive handles, can be highly advantageous over fully synthetic methods in terms of waste minimisation, sustainability and commercial viability.
In this project we will create and study novel carbohydrate building blocks and processes for the modification of peptides and proteins. Your role will be to investigate and optimise these processes, developing the study from model synthetic systems to biological protein targets.
This project will take advantage of the published and ongoing work in the Macmillan group on semi-synthetic protein synthesis and selective protein modification using activated carbohydrates (1-4). The student will gain expertise in an array of techniques across carbohydrate and peptide chemistry, cell biology and protein engineering,
References
- Nyandoro K, Lamb CMG, Yu H, Shi J, Macmillan D. Investigation of acyl transfer auxiliary-assisted glycoconjugation for glycoprotein semi-synthesis. Org. Biomol. Chem. 2022;20(43):8506–14.
- Lamb CMG, Shi J, Wilden JD, Macmillan D. Novel electrochemically-mediated peptide dethiylation in processes relevant to native chemical ligation. Org. Biomol. Chem. 2022;20(36):7343–50.
- Barnes NG, Nyandoro K, Jin H, Macmillan D. Rapid access to Asp/Glu sidechain hydrazides as thioester precursors for peptide cyclization and glycosylation. Chem. Commun. 2021;57(8):1006–9.
- Cowper B, Sze TM, Premdjee B, Bongat White AF, Hacking A, Macmillan D. Examination of mercaptobenzyl sulfonates as catalysts for native chemical ligation: application to the assembly of a glycosylated Glucagon-Like Peptide 1 (GLP-1) analogue. Chem. Commun. 2015;51(15):3208–10.
Applicants should have, or be expecting to achieve, a first or upper second-class Honours degree or equivalent in Chemistry or a closely related discipline. Informal enquiries to Dr Derek Macmillan (d.macmillan@ucl.ac.uk) are encouraged.
Please note that a suitable applicant will be required to complete the MS Form entitled “Application for Research: degree Chemistry programme.” In addition, suitable applicants must complete an electronic application form at UCL Graduate Application (please select Research degree: Chemistry programme) before the application deadline and ask their referees to submit their references as soon as possible.
All shortlisted applicants will be invited to an interview no more than four weeks after the application deadline.
Any admissions queries should be directed to Fahmida Yasmin or Dr Jadranka Butorac at doctoral.chem@ucl.ac.uk.
Funding Notes
Applications are welcome from UK nationals, EU students with settled/pre-settled status, and students with indefinite leave to remain or enter. Please note that the studentship only covers home fees. The updated rules regarding eligibility for home fee status are available on the UCL student fee status webpage.