The Group

We are based in the GlaxoSmithKline Carbon Neutral Laboratory for Sustainable Chemistry, a state-of-the-art research facility located on the Jubilee Campus of the University of Nottingham. We have excellent facilities in our laboratory including HPLC, LC-MS, Combiflash purification, a Vapourtec flow reactor, a Radleys jacketed vessel, and Spartan 2020 for QM and MM calculations. Our group consists of postgraduate students, postdoctoral researchers and undergraduate students funded by research councils, charities and the pharmaceutical and agrochemical industries

Current Group (October 2024)

Principal Investigator: Professor Ross Denton

ORCID ID 0000-0003-1267-1971

Ross began his research career at The University of Nottingham, carrying out his PhD studies with Professor Jim Anderson. Following the completion of his doctoral research he moved to The Scripps Research Institute in California as a postdoctoral fellow in the group of Professor K.C. Nicolaou. Returning to the UK he carried out further postdoctoral studies with Professor Steven Ley, CBE, FRS at Cambridge University. He returned to Nottingham to begin his independent research career in 2008 as a fixed term Lecturer in Organic Chemistry. In 2009 he was appointed to a Lectureship in Organic Chemistry. He was promoted to Associate Professor in 2016 and to Professor of Organic Chemistry in 2020. He was the recipient of the 2020 SCI Process Chemistry Award and the 2022 RSC Bader prize. Ross is a father of three and outside academic work he enjoys climbing, alpinism and running .

Postdoctoral Research Associates:

• Dr Simon Johnson (funded by EPSRC IAA Grant

PhD and MRes students:

• Isabel Wood  – PhD student (CDT)
• Laura Blair – PhD student (CDT)
• Mia Bonfield – PhD student (UoN)
• Lucy Quayle – PhD student (UoN)
• Rhoda Phillips – PhD student (CDT and AstraZeneca)
• Jessica Sellar – PhD student (CDT and GSK in collaboration with Dr Mattia Silvi)
• Hannah Raja – MRes student

Former Group Members:

• Dr Tom Barber  (Leverhulme Trust PDRA)
• Dr Arunprasath Dhanarajan (EPSRC PDRA now Research Scientist at Pharmaron)
• Dr Peter Walton – PhD student (GSK funded in collaboration with Prof. Jonathan Hirst)
• Dr Alessio Calcatelli – PhD student (GSK funded in collaboration with Dr Liam Ball) now Chemoinformatics Engineer at Dalton
• Dr Oska Pugh – PhD student now PDRA at Oxford University

• Victor Adejare – MRes student
• Dr Milly Stoneley – PhD student now with the Food Standards Agency
• Ishbel Cooke – MRes student – now PhD student with Dr Miriam O’Duill
• Dr Li Zhai – PDRA – now research chemist at Pharmaron
• Dr Nick Atkinson – PhD student (CASE collaboration with AstraZeneca) – research scientist at Pharmaron
• Salvatore Giagone – MRes student – now PhD student with Prof. Rob Stockman
• Filippo Ficarra – MRes student – now PhD student with Dr Mattia Silvi
• Dr Natalie Charlesworth – PhD student (CASE collaboration with AstraZeneca) now research scientist at Sia.
• Dr James Wilson – PhD student (CDT collaboration with GlaxoSmithKline) now research scientist at AstraZeneca
• Dr Ben Scrafield – PhD student (CDT) now PDRA with Dr Liam Ball
• Jaffer Zaidi – MRes student – now PhD student at Nottingham
• Jamie Crooks – MRes student
• Dr Rhydian Beddoe – PhD student (CDT collaboration with GlaxoSmithKline) – now research scientist at Charnwood Molecular
• Grace Boden – MRes student – now PhD student at Bristol
• Brittany Simpson – MRes student – now research chemist at Pfizer, USA
• James Glenn – MRes student
• Dr Emma Stoll – PhD student – now research chemist at GSK
• Dr Robert Arnold – PhD student –  now research chemist at Evotec
• Dr Alex Scollan – PhD student – now research chemist at Charnwood Molecular
• Dr Dean Wheeler – PhD student (iCASE collaboration with Syngenta) – now research chemist at Evotec.
• Dr Ted Thornton – PhD student (CASE collaboration with AstraZeneca) – now research chemist at Evotec.
• Dr Valentin Magne – PDRA and now Assistant Professor CNRS.
• Dr James Cuthbertson, PDRA and former Royal Society URF, now a research scientist at Charm Therapeutics.
• Dr Adam Fearnley, PhD student – research chemist Charnwood Molecular and now teaching Chemistry.
• Dr Keith Andrews, PhD student and PDRA – now an Assistant Professor at Durham.
• Dr Charlotte Chapman, PhD student – now research chemist.
• Dr Andrew Shannon-Little, PhD student – now Senior Account Manager Lhasa.
• Dr James Scragg, 4th Year Project Student and PhD Student – now teaching Chemistry.
• Dr Jie An, PhD Student – now Professor at China Agricultural University – Jie’s website.
• Dr Xiaoping Tang, PDRA – now research chemist Pharmaron.
• Dr Jan Saska, 4th year project student, PhD student and PDRA . PDRA with Prof. Mark Mascal at U.C. Davis, California. Now research chemist in USA.