Milan Fowkes

I completed my undergraduate master's degree in Chemistry (MChem) at the University of Warwick in 2011. During my final year, I worked on an MChem project involving the radical cyclisation of N-alkenyl-N-2-bromobenzyl acetamides under the supervision of Professor Andrew Clark. I then moved to Canada in 2012 to complete a two-year MSc in Chemistry at Western with a specialization in molecular imaging under the supervision of Dr. Leonard G. Luyt. During that time, I synthesised a peptidomimetic radiotracer specifically targeting the ghrelin receptor for the purpose of PET imaging of prostate cancer.

Having developed a strong interest in molecular imaging, I began working as a research assistant on a collaborative project between the Kennedy Institute (Dr. Ngee Han Lim) and TDI (Professor Paul E. Brennan) at the University of Oxford in 2015. This required the synthesis and characterisation of a series of radiopaque peptides for imaging cartilage breakdown in osteoarthritis. These probes were successfully tested in an in vivo mouse model of this disease.

I began my DPhil in October 2016 under the supervision of Dr. Han Lim (Kennedy), Professor Tonia Vincent (Kennedy) and Professor Paul Brennan (TDI). I completed it in July 2021. During my DPhil project I developed two selective FRET substrates for imaging the activity of ADAMTS-5, a key proteinase in the pathogenesis of osteoarthritis. My project was not exclusively carried out at Oxford, but also at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark. In Copenhagen I worked in the laboratory of Professor Morten Meldal at the department of chemistry for 7 months; using combinatorial chemistry to identify the selective ADAMTS-5 substrates described above. This short project was funded by a Researcher Mobility Grant from the Royal Society of Chemistry.