Johanna is a postgraduate researcher in Biological Sciences, developing PROTACs. She studied Chemistry at the University of Southampton and received her integrated Masters degree in 2020.
For her Bachelors dissertation, she worked on a medicinal chemistry project investigating the effect of fluorination on conformational bias and lipophilicity under the supervision of Professor Bruno Linclau and Dr Matthias Baud. During the summer of 2019, she undertook a research placement at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, where she worked on the natural product synthesis of Korormycin, from the highly abundant natural product, chitin. For her Masters dissertation, she produced novel DNA nanopores with various hydrophobic anchors. After attaching them to monoclonal antibodies, she biologically evaluated them for their cytotoxicity.
She has gained experience working for an SME, Nanomerics Ltd., developing drug delivery systems to improve bioavailability. Her work was developing and validating a bioanalytical assay to quantify API delivery into various tissues for potential future clinical trials. It was of particular interest to observe the later stages of drug discovery.
Johanna aims to develop her understanding and knowledge of early drug discovery through her PhD and how this can improve patient outcomes.
