People

Group leader: Dr Megan Wright

Megan graduated with an MSci from the University of Cambridge in 2008 in Natural Sciences (Chemistry), then went on to study for an MRes-PhD with Prof. Ed Tate at the Institute of Chemical Biology at Imperial College London. After receiving her PhD in 2013, she undertook postdoctoral research, first as an EPSRC Doctoral Prize Fellow in the Tate group, and then as a Marie Curie Fellow with Prof. Stephan Sieber at the TU Munich. She joined Leeds on a tenure-track University Academic Fellowship in 2016 and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2022.

Co-workers

Ryota Nakao

Ryota is a third year PhD student working with Megan and Stuart Warriner. Ryota is funded by an EPSRC iCASE studentship with Astra Zeneca and is developing caged covalent inhibitors and chemical tools.

Adam Cahill

Adam is a third year PhD student working with Anton Calabrese and co-supervised by Megan and Paul Meakins. Adam is funded by EPSRC and is designing novel crosslinkers for protein interactome study.

Tom French

Tom is a third year PhD student working with Adam Nelson and co-supervised by Megan. Tom is funded by an EPSRC iCASE studentship with GSK to develop new methods for discovery of chemical probes.

Mary Hines

Mary is a third year MRC DiMeN DTP student based at the University of Liverpool in the group of David Wilkinson. Mary is working with David and Megan on activity-based probes to understand arthritis.

Qi You

Qi is a second year postgraduate researcher working with Megan and Martin McPhillie in Leeds, and Polina Yarova and John Simpson in Newcastle, funded by the MRC DiMeN DTP. His project focuses on the development of chemical probes for visualising the Calcium Sensing Receptor in inflammation.

Before his PhD, Qi obtained an MSc in Drug Discovery and Development from UCL, and then worked at UCL as a visiting scientist with Dr. Erika Loizidou, where he used molecular modelling (MM) and molecular docking techniques to screen for lead compounds as potential immunoproteasome inhibitors. Qi's research interests are interdisciplinary, primarily focusing on medicinal chemistry and chemical biology, particularly in the discovery, design, and evaluation of small molecule drugs.

George Wade

George is a first year EPSRC-funded PhD student working with Adam Nelson, Richard Bayliss and Megan. His project focuses on the high-throughput discovery of lysine-directed probes for protein kinases.

Undergraduate project students

Daniella Emuemukoro

Daniella is a final year MChem student working on caged electrophiles for chemical proteomics.

Aaru Sinha

Aaru is doing an MSc in Drug Discovery and Development and will join the group for her research project, working on chemical probes to label the Calcium Sensing Receptor.

Alumni

PDRAs
Dr Brian Mantilla (2023-26) - now a Senior Research Technician in the School of Food Science and Nutrition at the University of Leeds
Dr Tameryn Stringer (2020-21) - now a Senior Lecturer at University of Waikato
Dr Pablo Carames Mendez (2019-2021) - now a PDRA at University of Leeds
Dr Martin Walko (2020-2025) - now a PDRA at the University of Leeds

PhD students
Dr Jacob Webb (2021-2025) - now a PDRA at Durham University
Dr Chloe Shingler
Dr Niamh Morris (2022-2025) - now a Research Scientist at Recursion
Dr Julian Chesti (2021-2025) - now working at the Crick Institute, London
Dr Jack White (2018-2023) - now an account associate at Real Chemistry
Dr Jaime Pitts (2017-2023) - now a PDRA at University of Leeds
Dr Devon Field (2017-2021) - now a Senior formulation chemist at Syngenta
Dr Izzy Pickles (2017-2021) - now a PDRA at York

Visitors
Viktor Savic (visiting PhD student from University of Vienne, 2022)

Undergraduate project students
Tara Sobiech (MNatSci, 2023-24)
Ben Fenton (MNatSci, 2023-24)
Jingyi Liu (MSc, 2022-23)
Dan Atchley (MNatSci, 2022-23)
Felix Giles (MNatSci, 2022-23)
Xiaomei Tang (MSc, 2021-22)
Rosie Jones (MSc, 2021-22)
Melissa Tupholme (MNatSci, 2021-22)
Alfie Doherty (Biochemical Society Summer student 2021; MNatSci, 2021-22) - now a PhD student on the GSK/Strathclyde program
Sanya Hussain (MChem, 2021-22)
Charlie Edleston (MChem, 2021-22) - now a PhD student at Newcastle University
Molly Harrison (MNatSci, 2020-21)
Bernardo Miranda Tavares (MChem, 2020-21)
Jessica Dobson (MChem, 2020-21)
Chenyi Lyu (MSc, 2020-21)
Mehreen Khan (MChem, 2019-20)
Callum Hutchinson (MChem, 2019-20)
Nicholas Morris (MSc, 2018-19)
Yifan Ding (MSc, 2018-19)
Camran Ali (MChem, 2018-19) - doing a PhD at the University of Manchester
Moritz Klischan (summer student, 2018)
Alexandra Tamasanu (MSc, 2017-18) - now a PhD student with Dr Mike Webb, Uni of Leeds
Delia Brustur (MChem, 2017-18) - went on to a PhD with Prof. Ed Tate, Imperial College London
Tonicha Spencer (MChem, 2017-18) - now a Medical Officer at NuVision Biotherapies
Bryony Stanbridge (Biochemical Society-funded summer student, 2017)
Vikki Clayton (MChem, 2016-17) - chemist at CRUK Manchester Institute