Our 2021 Student Profiles
- Siân Allerton
- Harry Beaven
- John Britton
- Sarah Chapman
- Yu Cheng
- Amalia Chrysostomou
- Gem Flint
- Shameem Golestaneh
- Abigail Iles
- Thomas Maher
- Niall McIntyre
- Maya Müller
- Matt White
- Abdul Zafar
- Yunfei Dang
- Davide Facchetti
- Xiaotong Lin
- Liquan Long
- Suchaya (Mint) Mahuttanatan
- Amina Nigmatulina
- Gaseitsiwe Lame Senatla
- Runxin Xu
- Shradda Vadodaria
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Siân Allerton
Project Title: Structural and pathological consequences of aSyn/lipid membrane interactions
Siân completed her MSci in Chemistry at Durham University and in her final year she completed an external masters project as part of the Koksch Group at the Freie Universität Berlin. There she focussed on the use of synthetic peptides as effective cell culture platforms. Now she is as a member of the Aprile, Kuimova, Edel and Ivanov Group and is looking at the use of fluorescence molecules, known as molecular rotors, in the in vitro detection of the formation of toxic oligomeric aggregates of alpha-synuclein, the protein associated with Parkinson’s Disease.
Siân Allerton
ICB CDT: Meet our students
Project Title: Structural and pathological consequences of aSyn/lipid membrane interactions
Siân completed her MSci in Chemistry at Durham University and in her final year she completed an external masters project as part of the Koksch Group at the Freie Universität Berlin. There she focussed on the use of synthetic peptides as effective cell culture platforms. Now she is as a member of the Aprile, Kuimova, Edel and Ivanov Group and is looking at the use of fluorescence molecules, known as molecular rotors, in the in vitro detection of the formation of toxic oligomeric aggregates of alpha-synuclein, the protein associated with Parkinson’s Disease.
Sarah Chapman
ICB CDT: Meet our students
Project Title: Electrons, leaves and light: investigating surface photodegradation of agrochemicals
1st year Ph.D. student, co-funded by EPSRC and Syngenta; supervised by Maxie Roessler & Laura Barter (Imperial College London) and Ben Robinson & Claire Donaldson (Syngenta).
Sarah completed her chemistry undergraduate at the University of Manchester. In her final year she simulated DEER spectra of multi-spin [3]- and [4]- rotaxanes to predict their structures in frozen solution (supervised by Prof. E. McInnes and Dr A. Bowen). Over the course of her Ph.D., she is investigating the photodegradation of agrochemicals on model plant leaf surfaces using EPR spectroscopy. The aim of the project is for these techniques to later be used as a tool to help scientists to better understand how agrochemicals photodegrade. In her spare time, she likes to play trumpet and piano, and reads novels (when time permits)!
Amalia Chrysostomou
ICB CDT: Meet our students
Project Title: Biomimetic control of ovarian follicle development: combining multi-scale soft biomaterials with biochemical interactions
Amalia is a PhD candidate with the Institute of Chemical Biology. Prior to this, she completed a BSc in Mechanical Engineering and Manufacturing at the University of Cyprus and a MSc in Biomedical Engineering with a focus in biomaterials at Imperial College. In her project now, she aims to use previous knowledge acquired in her lab about the mechanical microenvironment of the ovary to develop a 3D culture environment for ovarian follicles under the supervision of Dr. Iain dunlop, Prof. Kate Hardy and Prof. Stephen Franks.
Thomas Maher
ICB CDT: Meet our students
Project Title: Development of novel photochemical probes to investigate quadruplex DNA interactome in livings cells
Thomas received his BA and MSci. in Natural Sciences from the University of Cambridge in 2020, completing his Master’s thesis under the supervision of Prof. Oren Scherman on developing cucurbit[8]uril-mediated supramolecular hydrogels as biomimetic extracellular matrices. Following his MSci., Thomas joined the groups of Dr. Stephan Hacker and Prof. Stephan Sieber at the Technische Universität München as a research assistant. There his research focused on using a chemoproteomic platform to investigate lysine-directed covalent inhibitors (Hacker) and identifying novel antibiotic targets for pyridoxal phosphate dependent enzymes (Sieber). In 2021, Thomas joined the ICB CDT PhD programme developing novel photochemical probes to investigate the quadruplex DNA interactome in live cells.
Xiaotong (Erin) Lin
ICB CDT: Meet our students
Project Title: Investigating neurodegenerative protein aggregation by ultra-sensitive antibody detection
Xiaotong (Erin) obtained a first-class BSc in Chemistry at King’s College London before she further explored her interest in Chemical biology and completed her MRes in Chemical biology and Bio-entrepreneurship at Imperial College London. She is currently a PhD candidate with the ICB CDT; her current project focuses on probing misfolding proteins such as Amyloid-β peptide in Alzheimer's disease, co-supervised by Dr Francesco Aprile and Professor Ramon Vilar.
Abdul Zafar
ICB CDT: Meet our students
Project Title: Caught in the act: precision tools to unravel and diagnose glycoprotein misfolding
Abdul completed his MSci in Chemistry at Imperial College London, during which he undertook a Masters project in glycobiology with Ben Schumann to probe the substrate specificities of glycosyltransferases. He then enrolled onto the ICB CDT 1+3 MRes and PhD training programme, continuing in the Schumann lab and co-supervised by David Hewings (Vertex Pharmaceuticals). In his current research, he aims to shed light on the process of protein maturation using precision chemical tools to probe glycosylation in the secretory pathway.
Date last reviewed: 29 January 2024
Date last updated: 29 January 2024
