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 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 (autumn 2021)

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.

Postdoctoral Research Associates:

• Dr Tom Barber  (funded by Leverhulme Trust Grant RPG-2022-019)
• Dr Li Zhai (funded by EPSRC grant EP/S035990/1)

PhD and MRes students:

• Nick Atkinson – PhD student (CASE collaboration with AstraZeneca)
• Milly Stoneley – PhD student (UoN)
• Oska Pugh – PhD student (CDT)
• Peter Walton – PhD student (GSK funded in collaboration with Prof. Jonathan Hirst)
• Alessio Calcatelli – PhD student (GSK funded in collaboration with Dr Liam Ball)
• Isabel Wood  – PhD student (CDT)
• Laura Blair – PhD student (CDT)
• Filippo Ficarra – MRes student
• Salvatore Giangone – MRes student

Former Group Members 

• Dr Natalie Charlesworth – PhD student (CASE collaboration with AstraZeneca) now research scientist
• 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 Pharmaron
• Dr Robert Arnold – PhD student –  now research chemist at Evotec
• Dr Alex Scollan – PhD student
• 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 James Cuthbertson, PDRA – now an independent academic and Royal Society University Research Fellow here at Nottingham – James’ website
• Dr Adam Fearnley, PhD student – research chemist Charnwood Molecular and now teaching Chemistry.
• Dr Keith Andrews, PhD student and PDRA – now an 1851 Research Fellow, University of Oxford and Junior Research Fellow of Linacre College.
• 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.