Dr Sarah Lovelock
Dr. Sarah Lovelock, University of Manchester
Winner of the 2023 JMT Prize for early career scientists
Judges of the 2023 prize said, “We are delighted to choose Dr Sarah Lovelock for the 2023 JMT medal for her outstanding contributions in the area of developing new biocatalytic routes for the sustainable synthesis of pharmaceutically relevant molecules/materials. With her diverse background of being trained in the reputed universities in UK and abroad (Washington) as well as in industry (Roche and GSK), she has developed a world-class research lab and published research papers in some of the most reputed journals (Science, Nature Chem, JACS) from her independent career. Her research is collaborative (partners within both academia and industry) and multidisciplinary and involves the areas of synthetic chemistry and chemical biology with a central focus on biocatalysis. Biocatalysis is an emerging area and Sarah has been able to demonstrate new approaches that are greener and more sustainable than the conventional methods to make pharmaceutically relevant compounds such as oligonucleotides.”
Current research:
My research group are currently focussed on developing complementary biocatalytic approaches to oligonucleotide synthesis, that are required to deliver a broad range of structurally diverse RNA therapeutics. We are engineering enzymes for manufacturing clinically relevant molecules under process conditions, and developing enzymatic methods to produce the required nucleotide building blocks.
Read more:
R. Obexer, M. Naser, E.R. Moody, P.S. Baran, S. L. Lovelock Modern Approaches to Therapeutic Oligonucleotide Manufacturing. Science 2024 384, eadl4015
E.R. Moody, R. Obexer, F. Nickl, R. Spiess, S.L. Lovelock. An Enzyme Cascade Enables Production of Therapeutic Oligonucleotides in a Single Operation. Science 2023, 380, 1150-1154
Links:
https://www.lovelockresearchgroup.co.uk/
https://research.manchester.ac.uk/en/persons/sarah.lovelock
