Nicholas' research aims to identify the causes of one of the greatest healthcare challenges facing global society: the obesity pandemic. He leverages population human genetics and preclinical models to identify and develop potential new therapeutic targets for “civilisation diseases” associated with obesity, such as type 2 diabetes that are further driven by our advancing population age. Nicholas works with government, charity, education/public engagement, and industry stakeholders.

Nicola has over 25 years of industry drug discovery experience, most recently as Senior Vice President and Head of Biology at Astex Pharmaceuticals. Over her time in industry she has contributed to and led many small molecule drug discovery projects across multiple therapeutic areas (Anti-infectives, Oncology, Neurodegeneration), including those which have advanced compounds to the clinic.

She received her degree in Chemistry and PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Cambridge, UK. After a postdoctoral position at the Ecole Polytechnique, Paris, France she moved to industry, working for SmithKline Beecham (later GSK), at both UK and US sites, before joining Astex. She aims to provide an industry perspective on training needs and events/courses to the Biochemical Society. 

Adam is a Professor within the Department of Biosciences at Durham University in the North-East of England.

Adam's main research interest is in the quality control of proteins at the molecular level in cells and tissues. Within this overarching theme, Adam's laboratory studies how the immune system controls the presentation of antigens from pathogens; and how protein chaperones and oxidoreductases control the transport of secretory proteins from the endoplasmic reticulum.

Adam received an undergraduate degree in Biochemistry from Oxford University, and a PhD in Transplantation Biology from the Institute of Child Health, working with John Fabre. After training as a postdoctoral fellow in the Netherlands, first with Jacques Neefjes at the Netherlands Cancer Institute and then with Ineke Braakman at the University of Utrecht, Adam established a research group at Durham University. 

Adam is currently the Director for Postgraduate Studies at the Department of Biosciences, and hopes to bring experience in postgraduate training to develop new opportunities as part of the Conferences and Training Panel.

Vicky studied Chemistry at the University of Oxford where she received her MChem and was first introduced to protein NMR. She stayed on at Oxford to do her DPhil and some post-doctoral work in this area before moving to the Leibniz-Institut für Pharmakologie in Berlin where she switched from solution to solid-state NMR of proteins. After further stints at the Universities of Oxford and Bristol she moved to the University of Leicester in 2019 where she joined the Collaborative Computational Project for NMR (CCPN). She now is now involved in developing software for the biomolecular NMR community, supporting the work of academic and industrial scientists globally.

Keywords: Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, protein structure and dynamics, protein-protein and protein-ligand interactions

Filippo received a BSc in Biological Sciences and an MSc in Molecular Biology from the University of Siena (Siena, Italy). He carried out a PhD in Biochemistry under the supervision of Professor Annalisa Pastore, as part of a joint project between the University of Siena (Siena, Italy) and the National Institute for Medical Research-MRC (London, UK). After a successful postdoc at Imperial College London (London, UK), he became a Lecturer in 2015 and a Senior Lecturer in Biochemistry in 2020 at the University of Essex. Filippo’s research focuses on the characterisation of protein complexes that are part of signalling pathways, in normal and cancer cells. His goal is to understand how the molecular machines that compose signalling pathways work together to transfer information.

Keywords: X-ray crystallography, NMR, protein interactions, characterization of signaling pathways, structure based drug design

Hannah completed a PhD at Liverpool John Moores University where she investigated the effectiveness of the polyphenol resveratrol in preventing muscle atrophy within an in vitro model of caloric restriction. On completion of her PhD in 2017, Hannah undertook a post-doctoral position at the University of Oxford. This work was in collaboration with Summit therapeutics with the aim to elucidate novel regulatory pathways understanding the mechanistic action of potential drug candidates designed to modulate utrophin in the hopes of mitigating the pathology in Duchenne muscular dystrophy. Hannah then moved to Kings College London in 2019 where she worked with Dr Julien Ochala utilising single muscle fibre techniques to examine physiological dysfunction and associated causes of congenital myopathies. Hannah took up a role as Lecturer in the area of molecular and cellular physiology in the School of Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences in 2022, where she focuses on skeletal muscle regenerative rehabilitation.

Keywords: Skeletal muscle, muscle disease, regenerative rehabilitation