College of Life Sciences

Division of Biological Chemistry and Drug Discovery

The division of BCDD is located on the 1^st floor of the Wellcome Trust Biocentre (WTB), the Sir James Black Centre (JBC) and the Medical Science Institute (MSI).

Head of Division: Professor Alan Fairlamb (WTB) Deputy Head of Division: Professor Ian Gilbert(JBC) Division Secretary: Ms Kate Scott (JBC) Mrs Claire Kadoch (WTB) Mrs Marie Pryde Laboratory Managers: Ms Shona McInroy (WTB) Mr Brian Weryk (JBC)

The overarching theme of the Division is "the discovery of chemical solutions to biological problems" through excellence in basic and applied multidisciplinary research. Discovery, characterization and validation of drug targets in neglected diseases such as trypanosomiasis, leishmaniasis, malaria and other bacterial pathogens is a major research focus. Knowledge gained from these fundamental studies forms the foundation for translation into novel drug-like leads through a combination of high throughput screening, structure based design and medicinal chemistry. We also have an interest in discovering small molecules that influence stem cell fate in order to develop specific cell types for drug discovery. To meet these challenges in basic and translational research, members of the Division include specialists in bioinformatics, enzymology, molecular biology, glycobiology, in vitro and in vivo pharmacology and synthetic organic and medicinal chemistry.

The Division comprises thirteen actively collaborating research groups with major interests in:

1. Geoff Barton: Computer prediction of protein structure and function (Group website)
2. Ruth Brenk: Structure based drug design (Group website)
3. Alan Fairlamb: Biochemical drug targets in parasites (Group website)
4. Mike Ferguson: Molecular parasitology, glycobiology and parasite post-genomics (Group website)
5. David Gray: Molecular pharmacology and novel therapeutics
6. Ian Gilbert: Medicinal chemistry (Group website)
7. Andrew Hopkins: New methods of drug discovery (Group website)
8. Bill Hunter: Protein crystallography applied to enzyme targets for structure-based drug design
9. David Martin: Large scale data analysis (Group website)
10. Iva Navratilova: Biosensor-based drug discovery
11. Andrei Nikolaev: Carbohydrate chemistry and biochemistry
12. Kevin Read: Drug metabolism and pharmacokinetics
13. Paul Wyatt: Drug discovery for tropical diseases