Dr Anna Barnard – Group Leader

Anna is a Wellcome Trust Sir Henry Dale Fellow in the Department of Chemistry and the Insitute of Chemical Biology. 

After graduating with an MChem degree from Durham University in 2008, Anna began a PhD in Chemistry with Professor David Smith at the University of York on self-assembling dendrons with applications in gene delivery which included a research visit at the University of Illinois. From 2012, she worked as a post-doctoral research associate with Professor Andy Wilson at the University of Leeds for 2 years on the development of novel inhibitors of protein-protein interactions. She then carried out a post-doc at Imperial College with Professor Ed Tate for before starting a Junior Research Fellowship at Imperial in October 2015. In 2019 she was awarded a prestigious Sir Henry Dale Fellowship by the Wellcome Trust.

Postdoctoral Research Associates

Dr Archie Wall - PDRA March 2021-Present

In 2015, I graduated from the Unversity of Leeds with an MChem (Hons) in Medicinal Chemistry. A year later, I commenced a PhD in Chemical Biology at UCL under the supervision of Dr Jamie Baker and Prof. Vijay Chudasama, working on novel methods for site-selective bioconjuation to enable the construction of next-generation biotherapeutics.

In 2021, I joined the Barnard and Tate groups as a postdoctoral research associate, working on the selectivity profiling of α-helix mimetics in cells using chemoproteomics.

Dr Petr Sherin - Research Fellow February 2022-Present

I completed my PhD in Novosibirsk, Russia, followed by a posdoc in Geneva, Switzerland (2010-2012). Later I returned to Novosibirsk and was promoted to a permenant group leader position in 2018. As a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellow, I joined the Kuimova group in November 2019.

In February 2022, I joined the Barnard and Kuimova groups as a Research Fellow, working on the visualisation of protein-protein interaction inhibition in live cells.

Dr Roshni Malde - PDRA March 2022-Present

I graduated from the University of Birmingham in 2017 with an MSci degree in Natural Sciences. I then began my PhD studies at University College London under the supervision of Prof. Jamie Baker, Prof. Helen Fielding and Prof. Vijay Chudasama. My research explored novel photochemical reactions utilising ultrafast laser spectroscopy and their application to proteins and peptides towards the development of novel phototriggers and photocleavable conjugates.

In 2022, I joined the Barnard and Kuimova groups at Imperial College as a postdoctoral research associate, working on exploiting molecular rotors to study protein-protein interactions.

Postgraduate students

Sachi Sharma (PhD Student 2020 - Present)

I graduated with a BSc (Hons) in Chemistry from Queen Mary where I worked on a synthetic project focused on the development of a new palladium-catalysed allylic alkylation process.  I jointed the Fuchter group at Imperial College London as part of my MRes in Drug Discovery and Development, where I worked on developing transmission-blocking drugs as an approach to eradicate malaria.

I started my PhD with the Barnard group in 2020, working on the target-directed synthesis of helix mimetics co-supervised by Prof Alan Armstrong.  

Joshua Tomkins (PhD Student 2020 - Present)

In July 2020 I graduated from Durham University with an MChem degree. I completed my Master's research project in the Mahon group, using protein-polymer conjugate materials to study protein migration within bacterial outer membranes.

I started my PhD at Imperial College in October 2020, working in the Barnard, Speck, and Barr groups to develop peptides that stall origin licensing in non-small cell lung cancer cells.

Amrita Date (PhD Student 2021 - Present)

I graduated from the University of Mumbai (India) with a Bachelors in Pharmacy. I came to Imperial College in 2019 to do my Masters in Drug Discovery and Development (MRes), during which I worked on the design and synthesis of small molecule inhibitors of REV-ERB, under the supervision of Prof. Matthew Fuchter.

In 2021, I started my PhD with the Barnard group, working on the target profiling of hDM2 inhibitors using chemoproteomics.

Carla Aldington (PhD Student 2021 - Present)

Originally from Cornwall, I graduated from King's College London with an MSci in Chemistry. During my time at King's, I conducted two main projects, my final year research project within the Cobb group working on the asymmetric synthesis of a novel delta-amino acid and a King's undergraduate research fellowship working with Dr Harvey on a ChemEd based project.

In 2021, I joined the Barnard and Bull groups to complete my PhD as part of the React CDT using a combination of automated high-throughput synthesis, solid phase synthesis and target screening to optimise methodology for the discovery of PPI inhibitors.

Thomas Mills (PhD Student 2022 - Present)

I graduated from the University of Oxford in 2022 with an MChem in Chemistry. In my Master's project I worked in the Vallance group, combining mass spectrometry with machine learning to identify patients at high risk of mortality post-heart attack.

Kenneth Li (MRes Student 2022 - Present)

I received my BSc (Hons) in Medicinal and Biological Chemistry at the University of Edinburgh, where I worked on developing Raman-active peptides for histopathological imaging under the supervision of Professor Alison Hulme.

In 2022, I joined the Barnard group as part of my MRes in Drug Discovery and Development co-supervised by Professor Matthew Fucher. My project focuses on light-regulated peptides using symmetric azoheteroarene photoswitches.

Yifang Chen (MRes Student 2022 - Present)

I graduated from the University of Reading with a BSc (Hons) degree in Applied Chemistry. As a curious student, my diverse research experience in peptide hydrogels, supercapacitors, and organometallics has helped me to explore my research interest in different fields.

This year, I will work in the Rouse and Barnard groups for MRes in Drug Discovery & Development program. I will try to get more atomistic details of Phd-Doc antitoxin-toxin interaction by applying MD simulations to fully characterize the inhibitory activity of Phd against Doc toxin.

Undergraduate Students

AJ Martin (MSci Student 2022 - Present)

Born and raised in Brighton, I joined Imperial in 2019 on the MSci Chemistry with Medicianl Chemistry programme. This year, I joined the Barnard group for my MSci porject working on targeting key protein-protein interactions involved in DNA replication developing a peptide inhibitor of origin licensing in collaboration with the Speck and Barr groups.

Alumni

Postdoctoral Research Associates

Dennis Worm 2019-2022, Guilherme Vieira de Castro 2019-2022, Fiona Rowan 2017-2018

PhD Students

Rashi Kahan (MPhil) 2019-2021, Theo Flack 2015-2019

MRes Students

Sofya Rabinovich 2021/22, Phoebe Seltzer 2021/22, Ellie Tardo 2021/22, Simon Ng 2019/20, Shiqi Tang 2019/20, Clara Bernardi 2018/19, Muhammed Haque 2017/18, Yingchao Wang 2016/17, Dan Miles 2016/17, Huda Baldo 2015/16

Undergraduate Project Students (MSci/BSc)

Lishen Jiang (MSci) 2020/21, Lucy Haggerty (MSci) 2019/20, Henry Wilson (MSci) 2019/20, Oana Popescu (BSc) 2019, Pete Gobbett (BSc) 2019, Ana Losada de la Lastra (MSci) 2017/18, Hannah Kiely-Collins (MSci) 2017/18, Michelle Tan (MSci) 2015/16

Erasmus/Exchange Students

Ian Warm 2021/22, Rebecca Schouten 2021/22, Raquel Garcia-Ferrer 2020/21, Oliver Fischer 2017, Femke Meijer 2016/17