Sheenagh Aiken

Research Interests

I am a synthetic organic chemist by training but I have long been fascinated by the advances and challenges in drug discovery. I am interested in strategies for complex molecule synthesis, whether that’s potentially bioactive natural products and their analogues, or novel small molecules, and then to investigate the interplay between molecular structure and biological function or activity. 

I am the chemistry team leader on several drug discovery projects targeting Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease, working closely with colleagues in the ODDI, Centre for Medicines Discovery and external academic and industrial collaborators.

Background

I completed my undergraduate studies in Natural Sciences at the University of Cambridge, followed by a MSc in Chemical Research at Queen’s University Belfast (project supervised by Dr William P. D. Goldring) and then 18 months working as a graduate medicinal chemist in industry, synthesising drug-like molecules for oncology and immuno-oncology targets. My doctoral research on the application of lithiation–borylation methodology to the total synthesis of polyketide natural products was supervised by Professor Varinder K. Aggarwal at the University of Bristol.

After my PhD, I stayed in Bristol as a postdoc in the Aggarwal group and then working with Professor Tim Gallagher, before moving to Oxford to in May 2023 for a postdoc co-supervised by Professor Paul Brennan (Centre for Medicines Discovery) and Professor Yang Shi (Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research), and collaborating with Professor Chris Schofield (Chemistry), towards the development of novel chemical probes for RNA m6A methyltransferase enzymes. As part of this project I had the opportunity to spend 6 weeks as a visiting researcher with Dr Paola Arimondo at Institut Pasteur Paris.

In January 2025, I took on the role of chemistry team leader in the Alzheimer's Research UK Oxford Drug Discovery Institute.