7 Aug 2013
James Murray was born and grew up in Glasgow, Scotland. It was during secondary school that his passion for science and particularly chemistry was nurtured, and led to him undertaking his undergraduate degree in medicinal chemistry.
He began his academic career at the University of Strathclyde, completing two years with excellent results before participating in an ERASMUS exchange with Trinity College Dublin. He then conducted a one-year industrial placement in the Respiratory CEDD at GSK, Stevenage, which provided him with an excellent training in practical organic synthesis. After being offered the opportunity to investigate bifunctional organocatalysis with Prof Stephen Connon, he returned to Trinity College Dublin to complete his undergraduate degree. He graduated first in the year and was awarded the Gold Medal for chemistry and the Cocker Prize for final year dissertation entitled 'Enantioselective synthesis of γ-lactones using bifunctional organocatalysis.'
James then moved to Basel, Switzerland, to undertake a five-month industrial placement with Hoffman-La Roche, working initially in Discovery Chemistry before moving into process chemistry.
Currently, James is conducting his doctoral studies at Imperial College London under the supervision of Prof Alan Spivey. The project is funded by the EPSRC and is in collaboration with the Institute of Chemical Biology. His current research is towards the development of synthetic tools for phosphoproteome analysis as chemical alternatives to phosphospecific antibodies.
James enjoys being an active member of the scientific community and meeting other scientists of all disciplines. With the SCI scholarship James hopes to meet other like minded individuals within both the academic and industrial community. He also has a passion for music and enjoys playing the guitar and singing badly (he says modestly).
James Murray
Imperial College London
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