First piloted in 2021, SCI launched a new Scholarship Scheme, the SCI Sydney Andrew Scholarships, to support 10 PhD students studying subjects in emerging areas of agriculture and the chemical industry.
We are delighted to announce that Siratun Nahin Kazi, from Lancaster University, has been awarded an SCI Sydney Andrew Scholarship of £3,000 to support her PhD project, “Exploring Cubanes as Bioisosteres for Benzene Rings: Synthesis and Evaluation of Novel Bioactive Cubanes”
Dr Sydney Andrew, a brilliant industrial chemical engineer who exemplified the SCI mission of encouraging the application of chemical and related sciences for public benefit, died in November 2011. A life member of SCI, Dr Andrew was awarded the Society’s Medal and have a lecture on ‘Neglected Science: a view from industry’. He bequeathed a substantial share of his estate to SCI for the support of scientific innovation on the theme of neglected science. These are areas of science which, though of importance in agriculture and the chemical industry, receive scant attention from academic research, and for academic research into Neglected Science
'Originally from Birmingham, I graduated from Lancaster University with an integrated masters in Natural Sciences in July 2021. Whilst there, I opted to study a broad range of interdisciplinary sciences and, having developed a particular interest in the chemical sciences, I specialised in organic chemistry in my final year. My third-year research project investigated the synthesis and properties of various hydrogels under the supervision of Dr John Hardy, and following this, I undertook my masters project under the supervision of Dr Susannah Coote. During this time, I worked to develop a new route towards the synthesis of novel 1,2-diazetidines; a class of four-membered heterocycles containing two adjacent nitrogen atoms.
'I re-joined the Coote group in January 2022 to begin my PhD studies which concerned the synthesis of cubanes and their applications in medicinal chemistry. Cubanes are eight-membered carbocycles that are theorised to be beneficial three-dimensional scaffolds in medicinal chemistry, but as their synthesis is challenging, the incorporation of these structures into medicinally relevant compounds remains underexplored. My work focuses on using photochemistry to develop new methodologies to currently inaccessible cubanes, and in collaboration with Dr Sarah Allinson, I will assess the bioactivity of pharmaceutically relevant cubane-containing molecules.'
Nahin Kazi
PhD student
Lancaster University
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