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Richard FosterDr Richard Foster

Medicinal Chemistry Group Leader and Associate Professor

Richard  joined the University of Leeds following a career in the pharmaceutical industry during which time he worked as a senior medicinal chemist and project manager responsible for leading drug discovery programmes across all stages of the preclinical drug discovery process from hit identification through to lead optimisation.

At Leeds, Richard is Associate Professor & Group Leader of Medicinal Chemistry. His research group provides an integrated medicinal chemistry, high-throughput screening and molecular modelling capability for the identification and optimisation of small molecule therapeutics and chemical probes. He is a co-founder of two cardiovascular disease University spin-out companies,  LUNAC Therapeutics and CalTIC GmbH.

 

Post-doctoral research associates

Dr Alex Taylor
Yong is working on a Wellcome Trust funded project to identify chemical tools as modulators of aggregation prone and intrinsically disordered proteins as novel strategies to target amyloidosis. Alex is co-supervised by Sheena Radford (Leeds).

 

Dr Pablo Carames Mendez
Pablo is working on a project to optimise small molecule inhibitors of a serine protease of interest to the research group.   Pablo joined us from the Wright group at Leeds University where he was researching methods to map the redox proteome and before that from the McGowan group at Leeds where he was awarded a PhD researching the identification of ruthenium complexes as medicinal therapeutic agents. Pablo is a graduate (BSc Chemistry) from University of Santiago de Compostela and Heriot-Watt University, and has a MSc (Chemistry) from University of Santiago de Compostela.

 

 

PhD students

Jacob Kinsella
Jacob is a 4th year PhD student funded by the BHF working on the design, synthesis and biological characterisation of novel modulators of the mechanosensitive ion channel Piezo1. He received his degree in 2019 from the University of Manchester (MChem, Chemistry with Medicinal Chemistry). Jacob is co-supervised by David Beech(FMH, Leeds), and Adam Nelson (Chemistry).

 

 

Greg Kettley

Greg is a 4th year PhD student funded by a Mary and Alice Smith Memorial Scholarship working on the design, synthesis and biological characterisation of inhibitors of the AuroraA/NMyc interaction as agents to treat cancer. He received his degree in 2019 from the University of Manchester (MChem, Chemistry with Medicinal Chemistry). Greg is co-supervised by Richard Bayliss (FBS, Leeds)

 

Tim Richmond

Tim is a 4th year PhD student funded by a LIRS scholarship working on the development of a novel PROTAC to target degradation of SPOP proteins as an anti-cancer strategy.  He received his degree in 2019 from the University of Durham (MChem, Chemistry). Tim is co-supervised by Stephanie Wright (FBS, Leeds).

 

Freddy Weaver

Freddy is a 4th year PhD student funded by the BBSRC working on the design, synthesis and biological characterisation of  modulators of the STIP/HOP proteins as a novel anti-viral strategy. He received his degree in 2019 from the University of Sheffield (MChem, Chemistry). Freddy is co-supervised by Adrian Whitehouse (FBS, Leeds)

 

Elliott Smyth

Elliott is a 3rd year PhD student funded by a Royal Commission of 1851 fellowship and LifeArc. Elliott is working on a project to target the inhibition of methyltransferases as a novel antiviral strategy. He received his degree in 2019 from the University of York (MChem, Chemistry with Medicinal Chemistry).

 

Eve Loughlan

Eve is a 1st year PhD student funded by the EPSRC. Eve  working on the design, synthesis and biological characterisation of novel metalloprotease inhibitors for the  treatment of malaria. She received her degree in 2023 from the University of Glasgow (MChem, Chemistry with Medicinal Chemistry). Eve is co-supervised by Elwyn Isaac (FBS, Leeds).

 

Masters students

Jasmine Gower

Francesca is a 4th year MChem (Medicinal Chemistry) student working on a project to design and optimise inhibitors of protease of interest to the research group.

 

Ana da Silva
Ana is a 4th year MChem (Chemistry) student working on a project to optimise small molecule inhibitors of a serine protease as a treatment for uncontrolled bleeding.

 

Previous group members

PDRA

  • Clara Herrera-Arazomena: now a consultant at Prescient Healthcare
  • Sonia-Abas Prades: now a chemist at Evotec
  • Yong Xu: now a research scientist at AstraZeneca
  • Jeff Plante: now at LHASA (UK)
  • Ian Yule: now at Evotec
  • Jayakanth Kankanala: now a PDRA at the University of Michigan
  • Sarah Kidd: now at Cambridge-based start-up company
  • James Ayres: now working as a chemist in Germany

PhD

  • Belinda Mills: now a medical writer
  • May-Li Mackinon: now a PDRA at University of Manchester
  • James Duncan: now a PDRA at University of Warwick
  • Holly Foster: now a senior scientist at Excsentia
  • Rachael Tennant: now a senior scientist at LHASA
  • Syikin Hamzah: now an academic in Malaysia
  • Chris Fitzpatrick: now a computational chemist at CRUK
  • Kevin Cuthburtson: now working as a chemist at Eurofins
  • Ravi Singh: now a teaching fellow at Imperial College
  • Katherine Norman: now a teaching fellow at University of Durham
  • Sarah Ward: now working in the health service (NHS)