BCDD Guest Speaker- Dr Steven Cobb

The Development of Peptide- and Peptoid-based Agents for Combating NTDs

Biography
Steven Cobb carried out his PhD with Professor David O’Hagan at St. Andrews University (2001-2005). His work focused on the biosynthesis of fluorinated natural products, in the bacteria Streptomyces cattleya. The highlight of this research was the identification of the first ever naturally-occurring C-F bond forming enzyme (Nature, 2002, 416, 279). Steven was awarded an Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research Fellowship and moved to the University of Alberta, to work with Professor John Vederas, FRS. During this time he was introduced to the field of peptide chemistry and he worked on the development of new peptide based antibiotics. In October 2007 Steven moved to the Chemistry Department at Durham University as a temporary lecturer, and from this position he was awarded a prestigious Ramsay Memorial Trust Research Fellowship (2008–2010). In 2010 he was appointed to the position of Lecturer and since then he has attracted research funding from various competitive sources as a PI including the Royal Society, the EPSRC, The Wellcome Trust, The Leverhulme Trust, UK industry and he was recently the successful PI on a Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Grant (one of only 100 grants award worldwide from over 2100 applications).

Research Interests
Our group uses a range of methods and techniques in synthetic organic, peptoid and peptide chemistry to tackle interesting and challenging biological problems.

Host: Professor Ian Gilbert

All Welcome!