Chemical Biology – (Ph.D.)

The research of the rapidly expanding Chemical Biology group builds on the strength of Chemistry at Cardiff and aims to enhance cross-disciplinary activities between the Physical, Medical and Life Sciences. Current research topics include synthetic organic chemistry, carbohydrate, nucleic acids and protein chemistry, protein glycosylation, mechanism and kinetics of enzyme catalysed reactions, thermodynamics and kinetics of biomolecular interactions, quantum mechanical and molecular mechanics approaches to enzyme catalysis, chemical genetics and medicinal chemistry.

There are strong links with other Schools such as Biosciences, Pharmacy, Optometry and the School of Medicine. The group is very well supported with funding from the research councils, charities and industry. It profits from state-of-the-art facilities for synthesis, spectroscopy, mass spectrometry, chemical and molecular biology. Due to the interdisciplinary nature of the research, students from diverse backgrounds, such as Chemistry, Biochemistry, Biophysics, Computational Sciences and Molecular Biology, can make significant contributions to our work.

Available research areas:

* Terpene Biosynthesis
* The physical basis of enzyme catalysis
* Biophotonic Nanoswitches
* Medicinal Biochemistry
* Mechanisms of light-sensitive flavoproteins
* Peptide and protein interaction with nucleic acids
* Mass spectometry of cyclic peptides