POSTDOCTORAL RESEARCH ASSOCIATES
Dr Jordan Berreur
January 2021
Jordan received his MSci from the Université de Haute-Alsace in Mulhouse, France, along with a chemical engineering degree from the École Nationale Supérieure de Chimie de Mulhouse (ENSCMu) in 2017. He then moved to Strasbourg to pursue his PhD at the Laboratoire d’Innovation Moléculaire et Applications (CNRS/University of Strasbourg), under the supervision of Dr Frédéric Leroux, working on the development of chiral metal-free Lewis acids and their application in asymmetric catalysis. In 2021, Jordan joined the Collins Group as a PDRA to work with Dr Beatrice Collins and Professor Jonathan Clayden on biocatalytically driven autonomous rotary molecular motors.
Dr Charlotte Farrow
October 2021
Charlotte received her MSci (Natural Sciences) from Lancaster University in 2017, having developed platinum-based peroxisome trackers, moving to Birmingham to undertake a PhD under the joint supervision of Prof. James Tucker, Dr Richard Grainger, and Dr Paco Fernandez-Trillo at the University of Birmingham. During this work she worked on targeted drug delivery using anthracene derivatives and DNA, with a particular interest in light-activated release. In 2021, Charlotte joined the Collins Group as a PDRA to work on oscillating photostationary states for molecular cargo transport.
PhD STUDENTS
Aidan McFord
May 2019
Aidan obtained his MSci from the University of Bristol in 2018, after completing a masters research project focused on gold redox catalysis under the supervision of Dr Chris Russell. During his time at Bristol, Aidan has worked on several short research projects ranging between synthetic organic chemistry, homogeneous catalysis, and computational chemistry. In 2018 Aidan joined the Centre for Doctoral Training in Chemical Synthesis hosting in the School of Chemistry at Bristol and in May 2019 he joined the Collins group and is currently working towards the development of a chemically-fuelled, autonomous rotary molecular motor. Aidan's work is co-supervised by Dr Natalie Fey.
Michael Chronias
September 2019
Michael graduated with an MSci from the University of Cambridge in 2018, completing his final year project in photoredox catalysis under the supervision of Professor Matthew Gaunt. He then moved to Oxford where he spent one year working as a process chemist at Aptuit, an Evotec Company. Michael joined the Collins group in September 2019 and his current project is investigating autonomous linear motion at the molecular level.
Oliver Bayley
March 2020
From New Zealand, Olly graduated from Victoria University of Wellington with a Masters in Drug Development at the beginning of 2019. After his Masters, which focused on natural product total synthesis, he moved to Auckland to work for the Auckland Cancer Society Research Centre to develop compounds for clinical trials. After moving to Bristol at the start of 2020, his current project looks at the design and synthesis of single bond rotors.
Connah Harris
July 2020
Connah graduated from the University of Bristol in 2019. During his final year project, he worked with Dr Simon Hall FRSC working to find superconductive organic crystals comprised of halogenated chalcone molecules. In October 2019, Connah joined the Centre for Doctoral Training in Technology Enhanced Synthesis hosted in the School of Chemistry at Bristol. After short rotations in the Collins group and in the group of Professor Carmen Galan, Connah started his research PhD, co-supervised by Professor Andrew Orr-Ewing and Dr Beatrice Collins, using ultrafast spectroscopy to investigate the behaviour of molecular motors.
Olivia Watts
June 2021
Olivia graduated from the University of Manchester in 2020. During her final year project, she worked under the supervision of Prof. David Leigh in developing the use of metal-free active template reactions to synthesise higher order rotaxanes. In 2018 she undertook a year abroad at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, where she also spent the summer of 2019 working with Assoc. Prof. Roderick Bates on the total synthesis of asperidine B.
Emma Hollis
June 2021
Emma graduated from the University of Bristol in 2020. She completed a summer placement with Prof. Chris Willis in 2019 working on isomeric studies of the polyketide natural product kalimantacin. She continued in the Willis group for her final year project where she collaborated with Dr Joleen Masschelein at KU Leuven in Belgium, investigating the biosynthesis of the natural product oximidine. She synthesised pantetheine bound substrates, which were to be used in bioassays to further understand the role and function of specific enzymes in the biosynthetic pathway to oximidine.
![emma-hollis_opt[1] - cropped.jpg](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/583a3a_53a0de44fbed4da4923ac6390133ae73~mv2.jpg/v1/crop/x_0,y_3,w_100,h_134/fill/w_140,h_188,al_c,lg_1,q_80,enc_auto/emma-hollis_opt%5B1%5D%20-%20cropped.jpg)
Sarah Eibenschutz
June 2022
Sarah graduated from the University of Bristol in 2018 where she conducted her final year project in Professor Crump’s group investigating the structure of IGF2R. In 2017 she completed a summer placement at the ICR under the supervision of Professor Julian Blagg where she worked to develop PROTACs as oncological treatments. In 2019 she joined Sygnature Discovery and worked as a medicinal chemist until 2021. In September 2021 Sarah joined the TECS CDT and in June 2022 joined the Collins group and is currently working to develop cyclic reaction networks for new synthetic methodologies.
Jamie Dudley
September 2022
Jamie graduated from the University of Bristol in 2022 having completed his final year project under the supervision of Professor Matt Crump. The project looked to elucidate the mechanism by which α-synuclein, a protein implicated in Parkinson’s disease, misfolded. In 2021 he completed a project at the ICR with Professor Ian Collins’ group which looked to synthesise PROTACs capable of targeting kinases implicated in neuroblastoma and medulloblastoma. Jamie joined the Collins group in September 2022.
MASTERS STUDENTS
Usman Malik
September 2022
Usman is currently an undergraduate MSci Chemistry with Industrial Experience student at the University of Bristol, undertaking his final year project in autonomous molecular linear motion. In 2021, Usman undertook an industrial placement at Reckitt Research & Development Centre in Heidelberg, Germany.
Manfred Battle
November 2022
Manfred is currently in his final year studying Chemistry (BSc) at the University of Bristol. As part of this research group, his final year project is on enantioselective phosphorylative desymmetrization and its potential application in molecular motors. In the summer preceding his final year, he attended work experience doing spiking and purging work in process chemistry at GSK.
VISITING STUDENTS
ALUMNI
Dr Grzegorz Pikus, PDRA: December 2019 - June 2021
Carlijn van Beek, Visiting Student from the University of Groningen: January 2021 - April 2021
Natalie Awcock, MSci Project Student: October 2020 - May 2021
Jamie Dale, MSci Project Student: October 2019 - May 2020
Gandeepan Parthasarathy, PDRA: June 2019 - December 2019
Isaac Haigh, MSci Project Student: October 2018 - May 2019