Research Assistant in Medicinal Chemistry - Strand WCR LS

The Institute of Pharmaceutical Science (IPS) at KCL supports world class fundamental and applied research across the full spectrum of pharmaceutical science, from drug discovery through biophysical and biological characterization, pharmacology, formulation, drug delivery and use of medicines, with a strong culture of multi-disciplinary collaboration and links to clinical colleagues evidenced by awards of major grants from organisations such as MRC, BBSRC and NC3

Rs. The medicinal chemistry laboratory of IPS has been recently refurbished and modernized with new equipment and facilities, and the selected candidate will be based at the medicinal chemistry laboratory at Franklin Wilkins Building.

Inflammation drives the pathogenesis of many respiratory disorders. Established anti-inflammatory medications (e.g. glucocorticosteriods or PDE4 inhibitors) have questionable efficacy in the majority of COPD patients. Patients often suffer side effects (eg increased pneumonia risk in patients administered glucocorticosteroids; dose limiting gastrointestinal side effects with PDE4 inhibitors). Furthermore, current drugs are delivered via the inhaled route, and cannot address the issue of systemic inflammation in COPD patients that increases the likelihood of disease exacerbations, or inflammation-driven co-morbidities (e.g. cardiovascular disease) that are also life threatening.

Research into the inflammasome; and inflammatory resolving pathways are novel competing strategies, however these retain a risk of immunosuppression. Our approach is advantageous because: 1, systemic platelet activation during inflammation is a critical process that does not carry operational redundancy; 2, targeting biased P2Y1 signalling associated with inflammation eliminates side effects associated with haemostasis eg unwanted bleeding; 3, rapid anti-inflammatory effects are induced by targeting platelet activation;

4, regular platelet turnover means drug effects can be ‘washed out’ if needs be; 5, we have proven local (lung) efficacy via systemic administration of our tool compounds.

The project will provide data to allow comparisons between chemical scaffolds (involve synthesis of novel structures chosen from understanding of initial series of compounds and their performance from MRC grant MR/T /1) in terms of measurements of efficacy using a validated in vivo model of respiratory disease (COPD), therapeutic dosing strategy to determine duration of action, (in house); pharmacokinetic (PK) data, and early safety profiles (maximum tolerated dose MTD) outsourced to Eurofins.

This is a 0.5 FTE post, you will be offered an a fixed term contract until 30/09/2026.