Tom Leigh

me suitI am a PhD student under the ‘Physical Sciences for Health’ centre for doctoral training. The project is supervised by Dr F. Fernandez-Trillo, Prof. A. Logan,
Major R. Blanch, Dr Z. Ahmed, and Dr S. He. My PhD project explores the use of polymers to deliver drugs, for example siRNA, to the back of the eye for the treatment of glaucoma.
I obtained an MChem from the University of Liverpool in ‘Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacology’ in 2016. During this time, I completed two inorganic projects in the delivery of drugs through emulsion formation, and a project in synthetic organic chemistry. Then I completed my MSc in 2017 as a part of my CDT programme, which entailed theoretical topics from a range of scientific disciplines and the undertaking of two mini projects. The first of these was on the study of effects of a multiwavelength light array for the maintenance of heart cells, working within cell biology and physics. The second was on the functionalisation of gold nanoparticles with antibodies. This entailed the use of multiple chemical analysis methods to identify groups on the antibody that could be used for attachment, in addition to nanoparticle synthesis and analysis. Additionally, during this time, I was a part of the organising committee for the Sci-Phy conference 2017.Outside of research I am a keen Ballroom and Latin American, and Rock and Roll dancer. In addition to this I am a scout leader at a local scout pack.

  •  Education:
    • MChem; University of Liverpool; Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacology; 2012-2016
    • MSci; University of Birmingham; Physical Sciences for Health; 2016-2017
  • Research career
    • 3rd year MChem project; 4 months (2015); Dr Haifei Zhang; Nano-emulsions with nano diamonds for drug delivery
    • Summer Project; 2 months (2015); Dr Andrew Stakulski; Synthetic Organic Chemistry
    • 4th Year MChem project; 8 months (2015-2016); Dr Haifei Zhang; Nano-emulsions with nano diamonds for drug delivery
    • MSci mini project 1; 3 months (2017); Prof P Cooper, Dr D Pavlovic, Prof W Palin, Dr M Milward, Dr H Dehghani; Photobiomodulatroy for Cardiovascular Disease
    • MSci mini project 2; 3 months (2017); Prof M. Hannon, Prof. Z. Pikramenou, Prof P. Murray, Dr I. Styles, Prof. H. Cooper and Dr P. Taniere; Attachement of a Thiol-ated linker to a CD20-antibody for targeted gold nanoparticle probes
    • PhD; 2017-2020; Dr F. Fernandez-Trillo, Prof. A. Logan, Major R. Blanch, Dr Z. Ahmed, and Dr S. He; Rapid Screening of Polymeric Transfection Agents for the Treatment of Glaucoma