Dr Ricky Cain
My name is Dr Ricky Cain, and I am a BBSRC funded Postdoctoral Research Fellow working in the Roper group at the University of Warwick. My principle research interests lie in the field of Medicinal Chemistry and Chemical Biology with a particular focus on combatting antimicrobial resistance. My current research focuses on the development of novel tools and reagents for Next Generation Inhibitor Discovery in Peptidoglycan biosynthesis and the design and synthesis of inhibitors for the multi-targeting of bacterial aminoacyl t-RNA synthetases. I also provide synthetic chemistry and molecular design/docking support to a number of other ongoing projects. I recently returned to the roper lab from a three month secondment at LifeArc Ltd working on the permiability of inhibitors against the bacterial aminoacyl t-RNA synthetases.
I first joined the Roper group as an EPSRC “Bridging the Gaps” early career fellow working on the design and synthesis of inhibitors for the multi-targeting of bacterial aminoacyl t-RNA synthetases in collaboration with Prof. Colin Fishwick at the University of Leeds.
Prior to this fellowship I conducted two short postdoctoral projects in the School of Chemistry at the University of Leeds The first was a computational study to understand the binding of repurposed drug Risperidone working with Prof. Paul Taylor and the second was a computational study to compare the molecular structure of unrelated psychotic drugs and non-psychotic analogues with known receptor proteins with Prof. John Blacker.
Education
PhD ‘Design and Synthesis of Metallo-β-lactamase inhibitors’, University of Leeds (2011-2015) - Supervisor: Prof. C. W. G. Fishwick. MRC funded studentship - international multidisciplinary consortium (Canada and UK)
MChem in Chemistry (with a year in industry) (First Class Hons), University of York (2007- 2011) - Research project: (Conducted at GlaxoSmithKline R&D, Stevenage) ‘The synthesis of small molecule integrin antagonists’.
Awards and Prizes
- Awarded EPSRC AMR Bridging the Gaps Fellowship 2016.
- Awarded ‘delegates’ poster prize at RSC-BMCS Postgraduate symposium, December 2014
- Awarded EFMC-ISMC 2014 Travel Prize
- Awarded RSC Organic and Biomolecular Chemistry poster prize at RSC Organic Division North Eastern Regional meeting, March 2013
- Awarded the University of York Department of Chemistry Scholarship 2007
Professional Memberships
- Member of the Royal Society of Chemistry (MRSC)
- Registered Scientist (RSci)
- Chartered Chemist (CChem)
