PhD Studentship in Medicinal Chemistry - Hydrophobic warheads to expand covalent drug discovery

Award summary

100% fees covered (Home), and a minimum tax-free annual living allowance of £21,805 (2026/27 UKRI rate).

Overview

The project aims to explore the potential of new warheads for the development of targeted covalent inhibitors for drug discovery. Targeted covalent inhibitors (TCIs) have vast potential to open new therapeutic avenues for undruggable targets but is currently limited by a lack of novel warheads and screening libraries. This project will involve the design and synthesis of new covalent fragment screening libraries incorporating novel hydrophobic warheads using a Fraglite design approach. This covalent fragment set will be designed for screening by both protein NMR and X-ray crystallography. It will be screened against potential protein targets via both protein NMR and X-ray crystallography to identify drug discovery start points for high-value cancer targets. An iterative cycle of design-make-test will be used to optimise hit fragments identified through screening.

This is an opportunity to join a vibrant medicinal chemistry research group focussed on developing new technologies for drug discovery. It is ideally suited for a chemistry graduate looking for a career in organic or medicinal chemistry research.

The project will provide multidisciplinary training in experimental techniques across chemistry and biology, providing a highly desirable skill-set enabling research at the chemistry-biology interface.