After having successfully gained my A. Levels in 1998 from St Christopher School, Letchworth I went straight to Queen Mary to start the 3-year BSc Pharmaceutical chemistry program. In my second year I realised that I enjoyed chemistry so much that I transferred to the 4 year MSci program.

In my third year I did a study on the anti-obesity drug Tetrahydrolipstatin (Orlistat, Zenical). For my fourth year MSci project I worked with Dr Peter Wyatt on the synthesis of azafagomines using Hetero Diels-Alder reactions giving me valuable insight into the synthesis and characterisation of natural products and their analogues.

I graduated form Queen Mary in the summer of 2002 with an upper second honours degree and started work for Dr Chris Richards in September 2002. I am currently working on the synthesis of disubstituted ferrocene derivatives displaying planar chirality. We hope to be able to use these compounds in the formation a catalytically active metal complexes to be used in enantioselective transformations. I am keen to continue with chemistry when I complete my PhD and would like a postdoctoral or industrial position.

Publications to date:

Exploiting Planar Chirality for the Generation of a-Ferrocenyl Stereogenic Centres.
C. J. Taylor, F. X. Roca and C. J. Richards, Synlett, 2005, 2159.