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Daniel Lucy

BHF CRE Cardiovascular Medicinal Chemistry Graduate Student

Project Title:  Targeting GPR43 – a GPCR involved in regulating inflammation that responds to dietary lipids.

Supervisors: Prof Angela Russell and Prof David Greaves

Biography

I received my undergraduate degree in chemistry from Balliol College, Oxford with my fourth year Masters project investigating novel interlocked structures for anion recognition. I was introduced to the central role that chemists have in drug discovery by a supplementary course in chemical pharmacology taken in my final year, which together with my desire to contribute to the fight against cardiovascular disease, ultimately inspired me to apply to the BHF CRE DPhil course.

My first rotation project was under the joint supervision of Prof. Craig Lygate and Prof. Angela Russell and attempted to identify pharmacological tool compounds to manipulate the phosphocreatine system in cardiomyocytes, with a view to mitigating the effects of ischaemia-reperfusion injury. This involved the design, synthesis and testing of potential activators of the creatine transporter protein (CrT). I was also involved in setting up and validating a luciferase reporter assay for high-throughput screening of transcriptional modulators of the CrT protein.

My second research project under the joint supervision of Prof. David Greaves and Prof. Angela Russell focused on investigating the effect that free fatty acid receptor signalling has on primary immune cells. In particular, the project involves developing novel ligands for GPR84 by an in silico and in vitro assay cascade, which could be used to probe the role of GPR84 in chronic inflammatory conditions such as atherosclerosis. Following the conclusion of the initial 16-week rotation project, I chose to continue this project for the remainder of my DPhil.

Undergraduate degree: Chemistry (MChem), University of Oxford

Studentship dates: 2015 Intake.  October 2015 to September 2019