Profile
Tom Knight
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About Me:
I live in London, where I am doing a PhD in SARS-CoV antiviral drug discovery and medicinal chemistry. In my spare time I enjoy going to the gym, exploring all the food in London, and walking my dogs.
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Whilst COVID-19 vaccines have helped to reduce the number of deaths due to the SARS-CoV-2 virus, there is a lot of worry about future variants of coronaviruses being able to mutate so that the vaccines no longer effect them. One solution to this is to make new anti-viral drugs that target specific proteins called ‘enzymes’ within the coronavirus that are needed for the virus to self-replicate. This is what companies such as Pfizer and Merck are doing now with their new drugs, which target the Main Protease (MPro) enzyme.
However, some scientists are worried that mutations to MPro also have the potential to make these new anti-viral drugs ineffective. Therefore to prevent future pandemics, we need to build up our arsenal of drugs to fight COVID.
Therefore, my research focuses on designing new drug molecules that will be effective on the most conserved (least likely to mutate) proteins in the SARS-CoV family, meaning that they will be effective and destroying SARS-CoV-2, but also on future variants of the virus.
This project uses artificial intelligence (A.I) to help us choose which molecules to make, and we are working closely with other scientists in the USA, Australia and at Oxford University to make this a reality.
My PhD is an ‘open-science’ project, meaning that all of our data is published online in real time so that anybody from anywhere in the world can see our research and contribute to our work. This means that we can make these urgently needed COVID drugs as fast as possible! We are making our new drug ‘patent-free’ meaning that nobody will own the rights to those drugs, so that they can be be made not-for-profit. This means that they can be made cheaply by anyone, including people in lower-income countries where they are urgently needed but may lack the money to pay for expensive new drugs.
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My Typical Day:
I have breakfast and coffee, then I get the train into central London. I get to UCL around 8:30am, where I do my lab experiments. I then go out for lunch and grab a coffee, before returning to the lab to finish my experiments in the afternoon, then look at my data from the day on the train home. I get home around 6:30pm.
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Once I get into the lab, I will read scientific papers to find out which method they used in a similar chemical reaction to the one that I want to do in the lab. I make any necessary modifications to the method, then carry out the reaction in the lab. This can take anywhere from 1 hour to multiple days depending on the reaction. We can do tests whilst the reaction is going on (NMR, TLC or LCMS) to see if the reaction is finished or it has worked. After the reaction is finished, we do a work up and purification to try to isolate the particular molecule that we want. Once we have confirmed the molecule by analysis, we bottle it up ready to be shipped to the screening lab, where they will soak the coronavirus protein with out drug molecule to test its efficacy.
Once per week me and the rest of my team will meet over Zoom and discuss all of our data, then come to an agreement about which experiments would be best to do next.
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What I'd do with the prize money:
I would like to spend the money of 3D computer modelling software to show students animations or videos of how drug molecules they might design stick to proteins and make them ineffective – hopefully inspiring new interest in drug discovery amongst students! I’d also like to cover travel expenses so that I can travel to schools to talk about careers in chemistry and drug discovery.It would also be nice to have some student visitors come visit our research lab at UCL, so the money could be used to pay for their travel and any lab PPE for them.
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Education:
Dartford Grammar School – 3x A-Levels (Chemistry, Biology, Graphic Design)
Cardiff University – Masters Degree in Chemistry (MChem).
University College London (UCL) – Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Medicinal Chemistry for Drug Discovery.
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Qualifications:
10 GCSEs (A*-B).
3 A-Levels (Chemistry, Biology, Graphic Design).
Master in Chemistry (MChem).
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Work History:
Post-Graduate Research (PhD) Student in Drug Discovery – University College London.
Synthetic Organic Chemist (Undergraduate industry placement year) – Pfizer.
Undergraduate Research (Placement) Student – Cardiff University, School of Chemistry.
Barista / Barman – Carluccio’s restaurant.
Shop Assistant – The Co-Op.
Shop Assistant – Stan Hill Farm.
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Current Job:
Post-graduate research (PhD) student in SARS-CoV anti-viral drug discovery.
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My Interview
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How would you describe yourself in 3 words?
saxophone-playing chemist
What did you want to be after you left school?
A research scientist
Were you ever in trouble at school?
Yes - quite a lot... mostly for arguing.
Who is your favourite singer or band?
Sam Fender
What's your favourite food?
Thai or Vietnamese.. or Spanish
If you had 3 wishes for yourself what would they be? - be honest!
1) To spend a year travelling the world. 2) To own a coffee shop. 3) To design a drug that cures patient's diseases.
Tell us a joke.
Haikus can be fun - But sometimes they don't make sense - Refrigerator
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