× Medicines Discovery Catapult

Meet Duygu Yilmaz – Senior Scientist

Which team do you work in and what does that team do? I work in the Target Engagement & Validation team – our goal is to help companies develop better drug molecules that have meaningful effects in the clinic. We design experiments to demonstrate that a drug molecule engages with its molecular target and affects […]

Read more

Meet Joanne Hartley – Senior Scientist – Biosamples

Which team do you work in and what does that team do? I work on samples with Helen Hind, which is part of our Discovery team. The team’s remit is to help companies locate and access clinical samples for use in their research. What’s your role within your team? I support many of the team’s […]

Read more

Application of AI and data science to extract value from Real-World Data (RWD)

In medicine, Real World Evidence (RWE) is derived from Real-World Data (RWD) and is the evidence regarding the clinical use and potential benefits or risks of a medical product. Essentially RWD can mean any data that is collected outside of a clinical trial and can relate to the health of the patient and/or the delivery […]

Read more

Meet Helen Hind – Biosamples Lead

Which team do you work in and what does that team do? I lead the Samples capability which is part of our Discovery team. Our remit is to support SMEs in accessing clinical samples, which they often require to progress their R&D assets. Based on previous feedback we’ve received from the UK life sciences sector, […]

Read more

Meet Rachel Lawless – Grants Officer

Which team do you work in and what does that team do? I work in the Grants team – our role is to provide funding help and guidance to our business partners. This includes scoping out grant opportunities, helping with grant writing, and connecting partners who can compliment each other to ensure projects are run […]

Read more

Guiding health researchers through the approvals needed to obtain NHS data

The MRC Regulatory Support Centre have developed The Health Data Access Tool Kit to help health researchers access NHS data. Programme Manager, Alex Bailey explains the thinking behind it. The researcher’s problem: I can’t get hold of the data I want We are all governed by a surfeit of laws, regulations and policies in our […]

Read more

Meet Charlie Bury – Cheminformatics Data Scientist

Which team do you work in, and what does that team do? I work in the Cheminformatics team, headed by Dr Andrew Pannifer. Our team is primarily focused on supporting the UK SME drug discovery community, through the development of AI and statistical approaches in order to better leverage the chemical and biological data to […]

Read more

Helping SMEs get what they need from the Heath Data Research Hubs

Health Data Research UK (HDRUK) is the national institute for health data science whose vision is to unite the UK’s health data to enable discoveries that improve peoples’ lives. Launched in April 2018, HDR UK works in partnership with the NHS, industry, academia and patients, and aims to help better understand diseases and discover new […]

Read more

Drug Delivery: Towards making drugs that work better

One of the most important challenges in drug development is efficient delivery of the drug molecule to the appropriate tissue to drive therapeutic benefit, while minimising side effects. For small molecule drugs, a sub-optimal ‘therapeutic index’ between the dose that delivers desired and undesired effects can limit effectiveness or even stop progression through clinical trials. […]

Read more