Dr William Brittain

Assistant Professor, Organic Chemistry

William Brittain completed a masters degree in chemistry at the University of Birmingham in 2013. He then remained in Birmingham to conduct his PhD studies (awarded 2018) in the group of Prof. John Fossey with external supervision from Dr Ben Buckley (Loughborough University). For his PhD Will studied asymmetric copper catalysed reactions and in particular helped develop several asymmetric azide-alkyne cycloaddition reactions (click reactions). Will also took part in a visiting scholar program in 2015 and 2016 spending time in the laboratory of Prof. Eric Anslyn at the University of Texas at Austin. During his time in Texas he worked on the application of three-component boronic acid assemblies to asymmetric catalysis and high throughput enantiomeric excess (ee) determination.

Will moved to Durham University to take up a postdoctoral position with Prof. Steven Cobb in 2017. During his time so far in Durham he has contributed to a number of projects including peptide modification, protecting group development, biosynthetic pathway elucidation and asymmetric bi-aryl synthesis. In 2020 Will was awarded a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship and appointed as an Assistant Professor (Research) to conduct independent research at Durham.

Carissa Lloyd

PDRA
Carissa completed her undergraduate degree in Chemistry at Newcastle University in 2018 before commencing her PhD at Durham University with Professor Steven Cobb. During this time, she worked on the synthesis of fluorinated modified peptides known to act as cysteine protease inhibitors, gaining experience in organic synthesis and peptide Chemistry. She then went on to complete a postdoc within the same research group, synthesising and probing the stability of the peptide ACTH. In 2023, Carissa joined the Brittain group, and is currently working towards the synthesis of a library anticancer agents in conjunction with Dr Patricia Muller and Pleco Therapeutics. In her spare time, Carissa enjoys gymnastics, ballet, singing, horse-riding and tennis!
Josh Rawlingson

PhD
Josh’s research is around native chemical ligation, a powerful method used in protein synthesis which couples unprotected peptide fragments under mild conditions. The aim of his project is to answer the key mechanistic questions behind the native chemical ligation reaction that have remained unanswered for almost 30 years. Josh began his PhD under the supervision of Prof. AnnMarie O’Donoghue and Dr Will Brittain in 2021.
Jia Luo

PhD
Jia started her PhD in 2023 with the Molecular Sciences for Medicine CDT, supervised by Dr Clare Mahon, Dr William Brittain and Dr Adam Wollmann, with her work focusing on the conjugation of photoactive metal complexes for anticancer and antimicrobial applications.
Chloe

PhD
Chloe completed her MChem with industrial placement at Durham University in 2022. Her final year project was completed at Macfarlan Smith, Edinburgh focusing on process development of opioid treatment drugs. Chloe begun her PhD in 2022 within the ESPRC CDT in Soft Matter and Functional Interfaces (SOFI2) focusing on the synthesis of chiral peptidomimetic polymers synthesised from chiral and bis-oxazolines, supervised by Dr Clare Mahon and Dr William Brittain. In her free time Chloe enjoys drawing portraits and going to gigs.
Daniel Bonn

PhD
Daniel completed his MChem at Durham University in 2023 where his project focused on developing a synthetic route to a fungal natural product. In 2023, Daniel started his PhD with Dr William Brittain, beginning research towards the repurposing of fluorinated gases to use as building blocks for small organic molecule synthesis. In his spare time, Daniel enjoys travelling, cooking and playing Basketball.
Katherine Deck

PhD
Katherine works primarily on metal-binding peptides and peptidomimetics as part of a cancer research collaboration with Dr Muller (Biosciences), Prof. Lunec (Newcastle University) and Pleco Therapeutics. She first joined the Brittain group in 2021 as a summer student making fluorinated dipyrrin ligands, and novel copper-binding peptide building blocks the following summer. Katherine completed her MSci at Durham in 2023, with a master’s project focusing on the development of bioconjugation strategies of anticancer radicals under the supervision of Prof. O’Donoghue. Outside of the lab, Katherine is an avid musician, and enjoys hiking and running to de-stress.
Alex Hague

MChem
Alex started working as an MChem student in 2023, carrying out research on cross-coupling reactions with acyl fluorides generated in situ. As hobbies he enjoys both hiking and board games.
Joel Cant

MChem