About Us - Team

Prof Ken Douglas

Ken Douglas has been Professor of Medicinal Chemistry at the University of Manchester since 1987 in the School of Pharmaceutical Sciences. He also works closely with academic research groups in Japan and Russia, and with various industrial laboratories in Europe and the UK. His research takes a multidisciplinary approach to rational development of new drug leads, primarily in parasitic diseases and cancer and in the application of modern medicinal chemistry approaches to the rational basis of novel molecular diagnostics. His laboratory uses both proteins and nucleic acids as targets for lead ligand design, followed by synthesis and evaluation for target inhibition/binding. Expertise includes protein modelling, novel ligand design and synthesis, enzymology, fast reaction techniques, DNA and RNA chemistry and high-field NMR spectroscopy of novel DNA structures and of DNA: ligand complexes. He has published some 220 refereed papers plus a number of patent filings in these areas. KTD’s research has been supported by the Wellcome Trust (lead drug design in parasitology, artificial ribonucleases and DNA repair), the EPSRC (novel fluorescence detectors), BBSRC (green fluorescent protein and DNA fluorescent diagnostics design), University Proof of Concept funds, and the Wolfson Foundation (a new Centre for the Rational Design of Molecular Diagnostics of which he is the Director). He has advised Research Councils, major Charities Grants Committees and Learned Societies in several countries including Ireland, France, Canada, Estonia and Finland as well as the UK.

Ken has a BA, MA & PhD in Chemistry. Awards include the Royal Society of Chemistry’s industrially sponsored 2002 Silver Medal for Medicinal Chemistry, the Sir Hans Sloane Medal (1966), the Matsumae International Medal and Fellowship to Japan (1983) and the Pittsburgh Spectroscopic Society’s College Award (1976). He has been Honorary Professor at Nagasaki University and Visiting Professor at Université de Paris-Sud and Université Paul-Sabatier in France.

Prof Bill Dawson

Professor Bill Dawson has over 30 years experience in the pharmaceutical and healthcare industry having been Research Director for Eli Lilly on the UK site for 14 years and then Director of Technology Acquisition for Eli Lilly in Europe.

He is also a non-executive director of Proteome Sciences plc, Novolytics Ltd, Antitope Ltd and Pharmovation Ltd and scientific advisory board member of a number of other start-up biotech companies. He is a member of the Science Committee of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, has worked extensively with the Research Councils in the UK over many years and is a visiting Professor to Sheffield Hallam University. He is currently Chair of the South East Health Technology Alliance.

He has a first degree in pharmacy, a PhD in pharmacology and an MSc in Biochemistry. He is a Fellow of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, the London School of Pharmacy and the Royal Society of Chemistry. He received an Honorary DSc from De Montfort University (2001) and the Harrison Memorial Medal of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (2004).

Dr Martino Picardo

Martino Picardo has a PhD in Biochemistry and spent 4 years at Baylor College Of Medicine, Houston , Texas, in Cardiovascular research. Martino joined Amersham International (now part of GE Healthcare) in 1991; and initially worked on developing HTS assays using Scintillation Proximity Assays (SPA). He went on to manage the R&D Technology Transfer Group, based in Cardiff. Following the merger of Amersham with Pharmacia Biotech in 1997, Martino became the Science Director for the Cardiff site before becoming a Business Manager for Manchester Innovation in June 1999. More recently he has been involved in BioIncubation (managing the Incubator Facility, negotiating with prospective tenants and obtaining Capital funds for phase II expansion, the Core Technology Facility) see www.umic.co.uk as General Manager . Martino has also been involved in the establishment of new Biotech ventures and licensing technology in the Neurosciences (Motac Neuroscience Ltd.), Cell biology (Epistem Ltd) and Instrumentation Platform (Multiplex Photonics Ltd.) business sectors.

Dr Helen Payne

Helen Payne has over 10 years industrial experience in pre-clinical drug discovery activities across a number of therapeutic areas. After completing her DPhil with Prof Phil Parsons at the University of Sussex, Helen was appointed as a postdoctoral research associate working with Prof Steve Ley at the University of Cambridge on the synthesis of the natural products Rapamycin and Thapsigargin. Helen then moved into the industrial sector as a research investigator at Cambridge Discovery Technology (which was acquired by Millennium Pharmaceuticals), leading parallel synthesis and medicinal chemistry programs in the oncology area. Helen then moved to Xention, which focuses on drug discovery through the modulation of ion channels, where she project managed an auto-immune and diabetes program. Helen successfully moved the project from early HTS through to the lead optimization stage, completing POC validation studies and identifying numerous key compounds within a number of series suitable for progression towards pre-clinical development. She has numerous publications in peer reviewed journals and patents. Helen has joined D2M as a senior team member, overseeing both business and scientific activities.

Dr Laura Etchells

Laura Etchells, following an MChem (Hons) in Chemistry with Medicinal Chemistry, obtained her PhD in 2004 working on the asymmetric synthesis of fluorinated analogues of intermediates on the tryptophan biosynthetic pathway. She spent a year as a postdoctoral research associate with Dr Roger Whitehead, on the synthesis of marine natural products utilising an approach based on their likely biosynthesis / biogenesis. She is currently working as a medicinal chemist collaborating with Professor Ken Douglas on fluorescent probes for molecular diagnostics. These include exciplex-based split-oligonucelotide probe systems using alkynylpyrenes for the detection of single nucleotide polymorphisms, as well as developing novel fluorophores that will both bind calcium and other metal ions and can be conjugated to molecularly re-engineered Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP) for novel intracellular assays. With over 7 years experience in medicinal chemistry synthetic research she has recently become a senior D2M team member.