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Charles Laughton

Associate Professor & Reader in Molecular Recognition, Faculty of Science

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Biography

My first degree was in Chemistry, and I then stayed on at Oxford to study for my DPhil with George Fleet on the total synthesis of analogues of the antimycoplasmic agent pseudomonic acid. I then moved to the CRC Experimental Cancer Chemotherapy Research Group at Aston University, working with Andy Gescher, John Hickman and Malcolm Stevens on protein kinase C inhibitors as antitumour agents. This awakened an interest in both cancer chemotherapy and computational chemistry. I next moved to the CRC Biomolecular Structure Unit at the Institute of Cancer Research, where with Stephen Neidle I was able to pursue molecular modeling full time, and also developed a particular interest in nucleic acid structure and recognition. In 1995 I took up a lectureship in the School of Pharmacy at Nottingham, and was promoted to Reader in 2001.

Teaching

Practical Pharmaceutical ChemistryPharmaceutical and Biological ChemistryMedicinal Chemistry and Drug Design

Research Summary

My research focuses on the understanding of molecular recognition in biological systems, and the application of this to projects in medicinal chemistry, particularly the development of novel… read more

Recent Publications

Current Research

My research focuses on the understanding of molecular recognition in biological systems, and the application of this to projects in medicinal chemistry, particularly the development of novel anticancer agents. My core research specialism is computational chemistry, and more specifically molecular dynamics simulations of biological macromolecules (proteins and nucleic acids) and their complexes with each other and with small ligands. Current work includes the development and application of new in silico drug screening methods (with Peter Fischer and Barrie Kellam), studies on solvation effects in protein-ligand recognition (with Steve Homans at Leeds), and studies on nucleic acid structure and recognition (with Modesto Orozco at Barcelona, and Sarah Harris at Leeds). Current anticancer drug discovery projects include telomere targetting (with Lodewijk Dekker, Peter Fischer, Tracey Bradshaw, and Stephanie Allen, plus Helen Byrne, Jonathan Wattis and Simon Preston in Maths, plus Panos Soultanas in Chemistry, and Pharminox), and inhibitors of DNA repair (with Peter Fischer, and Tracey Bradshaw, plus S. Madhusudan in Molecular Medical Sciences and Pharminox). A further major activity is the development of the Collaborative Computational Project for Biomolecular Simulation (www.ccpb.ac.uk), a new organisation tasked by the BBSRC with increasing the UK's capacity and capabilities in Biomolecular Simulation (with Leo Caves at York, Jonathan Essex at Southampton, Sarah Harris at Leeds, Richard Henchman at Manchester, Adrian Mulholland at Bristol, and Mike Sutcliffe at Manchester).

Memberships of Committees and Professional Bodies

• Member of the Royal Society of Chemistry (& Chartered Chemist)• Chair, Collaborative Computational Project for Biomolecular Simulation• Member of the Committee of the Molecular Graphics and Modelling Society• Member, BBSRC Research Committee D • Member, EPSRC High Performance Applications Panel • Member, HECToR Scientific Advisory Committee • Member, HECToR Distributed Computational Science and Engineering Support Panel.

School of Pharmacy

University of Nottingham
University Park
Nottingham, NG7 2RD

telephone: +44 (0) 115 951 5100
fax: +44 (0) 115 951 5102
email: pharmacy-enquiries@nottingham.ac.uk