LAB MEMBERS

Dr. Kilian V. M. Huber received his doctorate in Medicinal and Pharmaceutical Chemistry from the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) in Munich working on the design and synthesis of natural product-inspired kinase inhibitors in the group Prof. Franz Bracher. After postdoctoral studies in the laboratory of Prof. Stephen G. Davies at the Department of Chemistry, University of Oxford, and in the laboratory of Prof. Giulio Superti-Furga at the Research Centre for Molecular Medicine (CeMM), Vienna, he joined the SGC in 2015 as Principal Investigator and Chemical Biology Group Leader. In 2014 he was selected as a Winner of the GSK Discovery Fast Track Challenge, his other awards include the 2015 Young Investigator Award of the German Pharmaceutical Society (DPhG-Stiftung/Horst-Böhme-Stiftung) as well as a ThermoFisher TMT Research Award in 2017.

Dr Laura Diaz Saez completed her Biochemistry degree at the Autonomous University of Madrid and obtained her PhD from the University of Dundee working on the assessment of potential antibacterial drug targets. She joined the Huber lab to work on the structural and biochemical characterisation of novel targets involved in cancer and inflammatory disorders.

Dr Felix Feyertag completed his Bachelor of Science in Computer Science at the University of Edinburgh. He then pursued education at the University of Manchester, first with a Master of Science in Computational Molecular Biology under supervision of Dr. Simon Whelan, followed by a PhD under supervision of Prof. David Robertson, investigating lentiviruses in the context of host adaptation as well as the emergence of drug resistance. Felix completed a postdoc at the University of Nevada, Reno, under supervision of Dr. David Alvarez-Ponce, using large-scale comparative genomic and bioinformatic approaches to investigate the fundamental causes underlying the evolution of protein-coding genes. Felix joined the Huber lab in 2018 as a bioinformatician employing chemoproteomic and systems biological methods for identifying novel drug targets for multiple myeloma.

Originally from France, Dr. Brigitt Raux completed her Master’s degree in Functional and Structural Biology at the University of Toulouse. During her Masters she completed two internships at the Mourey group in the Institute of Pharmacology and Structural Biology in Toulouse (IPBS). Her research focused on the biochemical and structural characterization of two targets involved in the virulence of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. She then worked one year at the EIPL laboratory in Marseille, on the development of inhibitors targeting digestive enzymes implicated in obesity. Brigitt later obtained her PhD in Structural Biochemistry at the University of Aix-Marseille under the supervision of Dr. Xavier Morelli in the Centre of Research in Cancerology of Marseille (CRCM). Here, she worked on the development of potent and selective inhibitors targeting the BET family of Bromodomains. In June 2018, Brigitt joined the Huber group at the Target Discovery Institute where her current research focuses on the structural and biochemical characterisation of novel targets involved in cancer and inflammatory disorders.

Dr Jenny Ward completed her first degree (MChem) in Chemistry at the University of Oxford in 2011, having completed her Masters research in the synthesis and biological evaluation of non-inositol based ligands for the IP3 receptor under the supervision of Dr Stuart Conway. From 2011 to 2016 she undertook an MRes and PhD in Chemical Biology at the ICB-CDT, Imperial College London. Under the supervision of Prof Ed Tate and Prof Eric Lam, her research involved the design and proteomic profiling of activity-based probes for studying cellular ubiquitination machinery. Jenny also undertook a collaborative project with MISSION Therapeutics, which focussed of the chemoproteomic profiling of deubiquitinating enzymes. In June 2016 Jenny joined the Chemical Biology group at the Target Discovery Institute, where her research focuses on proteomic strategies for target identification, working in various biological and disease relevant models. Techniques utilised include thermal stability profiling, activity based protein profiling, photo affinity profiling and affinity enrichment. Jenny is also a member of Discovery Proteomics Facility, where she is responsible for the maintenance and operation of a Q-Exactive Orbitrap LC-MS/MS instrument.

Jake Stefaniak completed his undergraduate degree in biochemistry at the University in Oxford in 2015, with his Master’s thesis concerning cell signalling in circadian rhythms. He is now working towards his D Phil as a Systems Approaches to Biomedical Sciences (SABS) Doctoral Training Centre student under the joint supervision of Dr Kilian Huber and Prof Angela Russell. Jake’s current work revolves around the development of target deconvolution strategies using chemoproteomics and thermal stability profiling. In addition, Jake is the president of the Oxford University Scientific Society.

Mira Rothweiler completed her degree in Pharmacy at the Ludwig Maximilians Universität München in 2018. Before obtaining her German Pharmacy license in 2019, she gained practical experience as a pharmaceutical intern at the Adler Apotheke in Hamburg. For six months, she worked in the Huber group at the University of Oxford where she synthesised bifunctional degraders and subsequently tested them in cellular assays. In October 2019 Mira started her research project as an NDM studentship DPhil candidate. Currently, she is investigating new approaches for targeted protein degradation and ligand-based screening under co-supervision of Dr Kilian Huber and Prof Paul Brennan.

Jiangpeikun Song obtained his BS degree in Biology at Tsinghua University in 2019, with his thesis focusing on fluorescence polarization microscopy. After finishing his Bachelor's degree, he joined the Huber group in October 2019 as a DPhil student. Currently he is working on identifying E3 ligase targets using proximity-labelling based approaches.

Dr Catherine Rogers completed her degree in Biochemistry degree at the University of Warwick and then undertook a PhD with AstraZeneca and the University of Nottingham, in the School of Pharmacy. She then spent two years working as a postdoctoral research associate in the EPSRC Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Regenerative Medicine at the University of Nottingham, before joining the SGC in 2013. Her work comprises of establishing and running cellular target engagement assays.

Dr Paul Smith completed his PhD in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Leicester working on characterising the early spliceosomal complexes in the lab of Dr Olga Makarova. He then moved to the lab of Dr Andrey Revyakin making endogenously tagged transcription factors using CRISPR-CAS9 genome editing. Paul joined the Huber group in 2017 to work on CRISPR and genome-editing for drug target validation and cellular target engagement.

Sun Jung completed her degree in Biochemistry at the University of Leicester in 2016. During her final year project, she was investigating the interactions between CSN5 and its binding proteins in the Structural Biology of Cancer-Related Protein Targets group. After graduation, she was part of a disease model development team in Chronos Therapeutics working on drug screening and model validation for motor neuron disease. She joined the Huber group in 2018 and is working on protein production to support biochemical and structural characterisation of novel targets.