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

Dr Martin Walko

Martin is a PDRA developing tools to profile and modulate protein-protein interactions as part of the BBSRC sLoLa project SPIDR https://spidr-slola.com/

Dr Brian Suarez Mantilla

Brian is a PDRA working with Megan and Adam Nelson on target deconvolution of phenotypic hits, funded by an EPSRC Centre-to-Centre grant.

Jake Wheeler

Jake is a fourth year PhD student funded by the . Jake is supervised by Mike Webb, Richard Bayliss, and Megan on phosphohistidine signalling.

Jodie Foster

Jodie is an EPSRC-funded fourth year PhD student working with Megan and Mike Webb on chemical probes to study the interacting partners of phosphohistidine-containing proteins and peptides.

Jacob Webb

Jacob is a third year PhD student on a BBSRC iCASE award with Syngenta. Jacob has an MChem from the University of Birmingham and is using chemical proteomic approaches to understand the mode of action of plant pathogen fungicides. Jacob is co-supervised by Mike Webb, Tom Bennett.

Chloe Shingler

Chloe is a third year PhD student working with Megan and Andy Wilson on chemical tools to study intrinsically disordered protein regions. Chloe's studentship is an EPSRC iCASE in association with LifeArc. Chloe completed her MChem at the University of Leeds in 2021.

Julian Chesti

Julian is a third year PhD student working with Adam Nelson and co-supervised by Megan. Julian is funded by EPSRC and is developing diverse chemical probes for biological discovery.

Ryota Nakao

Ryota is a first 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 first 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 first 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.

Niamh Morris

Niamh is a second year PhD student based at the Rosalind Franklin Institute and funded by EPSRC. Niamh is working with Adam Nelson, Megan and Liang Wu to develop a high-throughput automated workflow for discovery of bioactive compounds.

Mary Hines

Mary is a second 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.

Undergraduate project students

Ben Fenton

Ben is a final year MNatSci student doing an interdisciplinary final year project with Megan and Anton Calabrese on chemical crosslinking for protein interaction studies.

Tara Sobiech

Tara is a final year MNatSci student doing an interdisciplinary final year project with Megan and Richard Bayliss on protein-protein interactions of Aurora A kinase.

Alumni

PDRAs
Dr Tameryn Stringer (2020-21) - now a Lecturer at UEA
Dr Pablo Carames Mendez (2019-2021) - now a PDRA at University of Leeds

PhD students
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
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