Dr Gurdip Bhalay's team focuses on the design and synthesis of safe and effective drugs for the treatment of cancer.
Dr Gurdip Bhalay is a member of the Cancer Research UK Cancer Therapeutics Unit where he uses his experiences in medicinal chemistry and chemical biology to help discover new drugs and advance the science of drug discovery. He has worked at big pharma as well as contract research organisations gaining over 20 years’ experience.
Dr Vassilios Bavetsias is a Senior Staff Scientist in the Cancer Research UK Cancer Therapeutics Unit at The Institute of Cancer Research, London. He works on the design and synthesis of small molecules as cancer therapeutics.
Ms Charlotte Bayley studied chemistry at the University of East Anglia and graduated in 2020 with a 1st class honours MChem degree. Charlotte is working towards a PhD degree in the area of chemical biology and designing novel probes for investigating the tumour microenvironment as well as tissue targeting.
Dr Edward Briggs joined the ICR in January 2021 as a Postdoctoral Training Fellow. Ed obtained his MChem from the University of Southampton which included an undergraduate project with Professor Bruno Linclau on the fluorination of glucose and galactose derivatives and a placement at Vertex Pharmaceuticals. Following this, he then carried out his PhD with Dr James Bull at Imperial College London, developing novel synthetic methods to access sulfoximines and sulfonimidamides.
Dr Thomas Clough joined the ICR in January 2021 as a Postdoctoral Training Fellow. Tom studied chemistry at the University of Southampton, where he obtained an MChem following a research project on lanthanide chelators for medical imaging at the University of British Columbia. Following this, he completed a PhD in Professor Nick Long’s group at Imperial College London, working on the design, synthesis and testing of imaging probes targeted to the pancreas.
Dr Edgar de las Heras Ruiz joined the ICR in 2018 as Postdoctoral Training Fellow. Edgar studied undergraduate chemistry in Spain, and then moved to Heidelberg for a 3 month placement in Gold catalysis with Prof Stephen Hashmi. He then studied for an MSc in Drug Discovery and Medicinal Chemistry at the University of Birmingham, before completing a synthetic and MedChem PhD with Dr Sam Butterworth at the University of Manchester.
Dr Simon Mutton joined the ICR as a Higher Scientific Officer in August 2019. After graduating with a MChem from Leeds University, Simon briefly worked at AstraZeneca before returning to Leeds University to complete a PhD with Professor Ron Grigg. This was followed by an industrial post-doctoral position at AstraZeneca at Avlon Works. Simon then moved to Novartis Horsham as a medicinal chemist, before managing a team of chemists at AMRI (UK)-Eli Lilly. Simon has over 10 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry and is using this knowledge to help drive projects forward.
Dr Anna Maria Schoepf joined the ICR in December 2020 as a Postdoctoral Training Fellow. Anna studied pharmacy at the University of Innsbruck and subsequently worked as a licensed pharmacist and pharmacy manager in Austria and Argentina. This was followed by a PhD in the field of Medicinal Chemistry at the University of Innsbruck, where she spent four years as a University Assistant at the Center for Chemistry and Biomedicine. Her doctoral studies (supervisor: Prof. Ronald Gust) focused on the development of small molecules to overcome the resistance in chronic myeloid leukemia and other malignancies.
Dr Catherine Tighe joined the Institute of Cancer Research as a Postdoctoral Training Fellow in June 2018. She moved from the Sussex Drug Discovery Centre at the University of Sussex where she worked as a research fellow as part of the oncology team. Catherine has a degree in medicinal chemistry and chemical biology from University College Dublin, where she stayed for her doctoral studies under the supervision of Professor Pat Guiry working on the synthesis and evaluation of lipoxin analogues for inflammatory diseases.