About
Postgraduate researcher currently in the second year of her PhD as part of the SoCoBio DTP. She has broad experience in synthetic chemistry, medicinal chemistry, immunology and biology within an academic setting. She is an ambitious scientist, passionate in multi-disciplinary research for improved progress in research, particularly in the field of drug discovery and development. She is a member of the Biological Sciences EDIG and a welfare officer for the Biological Sciences Postgraduate Society (BSPS).
Research
Research interests
- Medicinal Chemistry
- Chemical Biology
- Drug Discovery
Current research
Johanna’s research is ‘Dissecting Signalling Pathways using PROTAC Chemical Probes’. PROTACs are a relatively new, highly promising technology that could reduce side effects and complications experienced by patients undergoing treatments such as chemotherapy. However, to become sufficiently viable, they require physicochemical refinements, which is where her project begins. Her research primarily investigates the effect of the E3 ligase targeting moiety of the PROTAC, as this is a particular area of interest.
She has employed a multidisciplinary approach to her project, using computational modelling to drive her syntheses, and a wide variety of biological evaluation to understand the resultant physico-chemical properties, as well as the effect on the biological activity with the protein of interest. These will drive further modifications of the E3 ligase ligand, and then the whole PROTAC will be quantified later in the project.
The project outcome hopes that these developments will produce new PROTACs with improved properties for use in industry.
Publications
Biography
Johanna is a postgraduate researcher in Biological Sciences, developing PROTACs. She studied Chemistry at the University of Southampton and received her integrated Masters degree in 2020.
For her Bachelors dissertation, she worked on a medicinal chemistry project investigating the effect of fluorination on conformational bias and lipophilicity under the supervision of Professor Bruno Linclau and Dr Matthias Baud. During the summer of 2019, she undertook a research placement at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, where she worked on the natural product synthesis of Korormycin, from the highly abundant natural product, chitin. For her Masters dissertation, she produced novel DNA nanopores with various hydrophobic anchors. After attaching them to monoclonal antibodies, she biologically evaluated them for their cytotoxicity.
She has gained experience working for an SME, Nanomerics Ltd., developing drug delivery systems to improve bioavailability. Her work was developing and validating a bioanalytical assay to quantify API delivery into various tissues for potential future clinical trials. It was of particular interest to observe the later stages of drug discovery.
Johanna aims to develop her understanding and knowledge of early drug discovery through her PhD and how this can improve patient outcomes.