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LAB MEMBERS
Dr Kilian Huber
Principal Investigator
Dr. Kilian V. M. Huber received his doctorate in Medicinal and Pharmaceutical Chemistry from the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) in Munich working on the design and synthesis of natural product-inspired kinase inhibitors in the group Prof. Franz Bracher. After postdoctoral studies in the laboratory of Prof. Stephen G. Davies at the Department of Chemistry, University of Oxford, and in the laboratory of Prof. Giulio Superti-Furga at the Research Centre for Molecular Medicine (CeMM), Vienna, he joined the SGC in 2015 as Principal Investigator and Chemical Biology Group Leader. In 2014 he was selected as a Winner of the GSK Discovery Fast Track Challenge, his other awards include the 2015 Young Investigator Award of the German Pharmaceutical Society (DPhG-Stiftung/Horst-Böhme-Stiftung) as well as a ThermoFisher TMT Research Award in 2017.
Jesper Hansen
Postdoc
Dr Jesper S. Hansen is a biomedical and biophysical research scientist specialising in the biology and targeting of integral membrane proteins, as well as proteins interacting with cellular lipid membranes. Jesper completed his degree in biomedicine (MSc) at the University of Southern Denmark and did his PhD with the Danish biotech company Aquaporin A/S and Technical University of Denmark, DTU Nanotech. He has since worked as a postdoctoral researcher at University of Copenhagen (DK), University of Southern California (US) and Lund University (SE) before joining University of Oxford (UK) in 2019. His work comprises of establishing and running biochemical and biophysical analyses of proteins including solute carrier target engagement assays.
Srinivasa Rao Adusumalli
Postdoc
Dr Srinivasa Rao Adusumalli obtained his Master of Science in Organic Chemistry from Acharya Nagarjuna University (India). During his Ph.D. in Chemistry under the supervision of Dr. Vishal Rai at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER Bhopal, India), he developed chemical technologies for single-site labeling of native proteins. Later he joined “Plabeltech Private Limited” (India) and was involved in developing the toolbox for precision labeling of antibodies. As a Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellow in the Prof. Bernardes group at University of Cambridge (UK), he developed covalent small molecules for redesigning the structure and function of biomolecules and enabling the degradation of target protein. In April 2022, he joined the Dr. Huber group as Oxford-BMS Fellow at Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford. He is currently working on the development of new tools for systematic profiling of E3 ligase complexes with small molecule modulators.
Haozhe Xiao
DPhil student
Haozhe is a DPhil student in Clinical Medicine at the Nuffield Department of Medicine. His current research project focuses on using chemical probes to enable the functional exploration of cellular proteins with regard to their relevance for drug discovery. He is also a Gustav Born Scholar at St Peter's College. He acquired his undergraduate degree in Chemistry at University of Durham. After that, he moved to Imperial College London for his MRes program in Drug Discovery and Development. He is keen to conduct research in organic chemistry, chemical biology and drug discovery. Moreover, he has many internship experiences working as a research assistant and data analyst. In addition, he has conducted multiple voluntary work during his undergraduate studies. Apart from work, he enjoys travelling, reading and painting.
Alice Page
DPhil student
Alice completed her MChem at The University of York. During her master's year, she completed an industrial placement at Astrazeneca working in chemical development, here she attained RSci status with the RSC. Her master's research focused on the process development of a mineralocorticoid-receptor modulator, due to be used as a heart failure treatment. She worked on designing and optimising the synthetic route of an intermediate in the overall synthesis, ahead of a large-scale manufacture. She also completed an internship working as an analyst using mass spectrometry. After finishing her degree, she took a year out to travel around Southeast Asia and Australia. She is currently working towards a DPhil as part of the Chemistry in Cells doctoral programme - co-supervised by Dr Kilian Huber, Prof Paul Brennan and Dr David Hewings. Her research is focused on using high throughput chemistry to enable targeted cellular fragment screening.
Alejandro Gonzalez Orta
Research assistant
Alejandro did his Bachelor in Biotechnology Engineering in the Instituto Tecnologico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (Mexico), where he also worked as an assistant to a post doctorate researcher in a project involving a wide variety of molecular biology techniques. Afterwards, he got the opportunity to do his Master’s degree in Molecular Medicine to be completed in the University of Essex (United Kingdom). For his master thesis, he studied the role of a novel bioPROTAC in the selective degradation of mutant SOD1 proteins, commonly present in the onset of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Currently, he is working as a Research Assistant under PI Kilian Huber. His main tasks are performing cellular assays with chemiluminescence and image-based readouts, characterizing novel chemical probes, such as degraders and molecular glues, and developing cell viability assays.
Yusi Liu
Postdoc
Dr Yusi Liu earned her PhD from Wageningen University and Research in the Netherlands in April 2024. Her doctoral research spanned structural biology, biochemistry and immunology, contributing insights into anti-tumour mechanisms under the guidance of Prof. Harry Wichers and Prof. Fengjiao Xin. Currently, Dr. Liu is a postdoctoral researcher in the Huber Lab at the Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford. Her research focuses on unravelling the molecular mechanisms of purine synthesis and developing innovative anticancer therapies.
Lenye Sebenzile Dlamini
Postdoc
I began my postgraduate career as a Master’s student in biochemistry at the University of Pretoria, where I studied the structure and function of thiamine monophosphate kinase, a Mycobacterium tuberculosis drug target. I proceeded to identify and test lead compounds for their inhibitory potential as part of initial drug discovery efforts.
I then joined the Aaron Klug Centre for Imaging and Analysis at the University of Cape Town as a PhD student, focusing on enzyme engineering for industrial applications. My research involved engineering thermostable nitrilase enzymes, characterising and interpreting them through biochemical and biophysical analyses and cryogenic electron microscopy. During my PhD, I had the privilege of working at the Membrane Protein Lab at the Research Complex at Harwell and the Electron Bioimaging Centre, with Dr. Andrew Quigley and his exceptional team, with funding from iNSTRUCT-Eric.
Currently, I am a member of the interdisciplinary Chemical Biology team, where I contribute as a protein biochemist and structural biologist. My work involves exploring the structural and functional roles of target proteins to enable drug discovery.
Kiki Carey
DPhil student
Kiki completed her BS in chemistry at UMass Amherst in 2019. During this time, she was a student in the iCons program, an interdisciplinary science program focused on collaboration across scientific disciplines to solve real-world problems. After this, she worked for two years at the Broad Institute in Boston, Massachusetts in the Proteomics Platform, primarily focused on interactome profiling and proximity labelling proteomics. In 2021, she joined the Skaggs-Oxford program, in which she is a joint PhD-DPhil student at Scripps Research and Oxford. She completed three years in the Lairson Lab at Scripps prior to her transition to Oxford to finish her joint degree, studying the mechanism of action of anti-inflammatory small molecules in endothelial cells. She transitioned to Oxford in August 2024 where she is co-supervised by Dr. Paul Elliott in Biochemistry.
Yanzhi Guo
DPhil student
Yanzhi Guo is a first-year DPhil student at the Centre for Medicines Discovery, Nuffield Department of Medicine, where he focuses on developing novel protein degraders and biochemistry assays within the field of Chemical Biology, under the supervision of Dr. Kilian Huber. He earned his undergraduate degree in Clinical Pharmacy from Guilin Medical University (China), where he completed a year-long clinical placement and conducted extensive case analyses on Pulmonary Aspergillosis complicated by Catheter-Associated Bloodstream Infections. He then pursued a Master’s in Pharmacology at East China Normal University (China), dedicating his research to the discovery and mechanistic study of novel PI3K-mTOR Dual Inhibitors and Small Molecule Drug Conjugates targeting Colorectal Cancer. This included two industrial placements and the title of Outstanding Graduate from GLMC and ECNU. Beyond academia, Yanzhi is a member of the Oxford University Basketball Men’s 2nd Team and enjoys golf and kart racing in his leisure time.
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