Ramblings of a Drug Discovery PhD student who should really be in the lab or writing her thesis.
I spend my days in a chemistry lab making drug-like molecules. A lot of these end up being small quantities (less than 0.1 g!) and usually have the appearance of a white/off-white powder. Occasionally I get a colour which is very exciting. The question a non-chemist might ask is “how do you know you’ve made …
Continue reading "How do I know I’ve made the right molecule?"
My PhD project involves designing and making “tool molecules” that might lead to new cancer drugs one day. Medicinal chemistry covers a vast range of disease areas and many scientists often have a personal connection to their particular field. In this post I will discuss some of the personal experiences that motivated me to pursue …
On the 2018 A-level results day I posted the first of two blogs about what learning outcomes of A-level Chemistry I still use in my day to day work as a medicinal chemistry PhD student. It was so many that I had to split it into two blog posts! Since it's the first day of …
Continue reading "Will I ever use my A-level Chemistry? (Part 2/2)"
Today is A-level results day. The Independent reported that about 46,800 students took A-level chemistry in 2017 – the fourth most popular subject after mathematics, biology and psychology. That's a lot of people learning about the ingredients of the universe! While deep in the exam period, you might think the things you are revising are …
Continue reading "Will I ever use my A-level Chemistry? (Part 1/2)"
Today’s Google Doodle celebrates the Danish biochemist S.P.L. Sørensen (1868-1939) (Figure 1). He came up with the famous pH scale that is taught to high school chemistry students and is an important property to consider when using chemicals. The Doodle is a game which gets you to guess how acidic or basic some common household …
During my undergraduate degree, people would often ask what course I was studying. Usually the response to "Chemistry with Drug Discovery" was "Chemistry with what?". No, it doesn't involve hunting around with a magnifying glass looking for paracetamol. The drug discovery process is a huge chain of events involving numerous people that gets a medicine …
Everyone is different. Everyone chooses to do a PhD for a variety of reasons. Everyone wants to get different things out of a PhD project. Below is how I decided which projects to apply for. Why a PhD? Before even thinking of applying, you need to be sure you know exactly why you want to …
I am coming to the end of my first year at the SDDC and have been thinking a lot about what I’d like to do differently in my second year. I’ve achieved some of the primary aims of my project, but not all of them. This was due to collaborators and things outside my control …
How does someone end up designing cancer drugs for their PhD project? Well... After deciding not to pursue a music career while at high school, I needed to rethink my options. Chemistry had become more interesting once I started studying it as an individual subject. I found breaking the world down into processes and ingredients …
The Chemistry of a PhD 