Dr Richard Foster

Profile

I joined the University of Leeds following a career in the pharmaceutical industry, during which time I worked as medicinal chemist and project manager responsible for directing drug discovery programmes at all stages of the drug discovery pathway, from hit identification through to lead optimisation. At Leeds, I am a Group Leader of Medicinal Chemistry. My research group provides an integrated medicinal chemistry, high-throughput screening and molecular modelling capability for the identification and optimisation of small molecule therapeutics and probes.

Responsibilities

• Programme Manager - Medicinal Chemistry MChem, BSc degree programmes

Research interests

Our group undertakes research in medicinal chemistry, synthetic chemistry and chemical biology. The underlying focus of our research is small molecule drug discovery. We are interested in the synthesis and development of small molecules as therapeutics as well as the design of chemical probes to support validation of novel biological targets in areas of unmet medical need. Current areas of interest include: the development of novel anti-thrombotics with minimal bleeding risk, the identification of novel ion channel modulators for treatment of metabolic disease and fragment-based design of novel anti-cancer agents

Please browse our research pages to find out more.

Qualifications

• BSc Chemistry
• PhD Organic Chemistry

Student education

I teach medicinal chemistry and chemical biology at undergraduate and taught postgraduate levels. I supervise Masters research projects in the medicinal chemistry area.

Research groups and institutes

• Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry

Current postgraduate researchers

• James Duncan
• Holly Foster

Projects

<li><a href="//phd.leeds.ac.uk/project/100-identification-of-mlm-receptor-antagonists-for-treatment-of-cancer">Identification of mlm receptor antagonists for treatment of cancer</a></li>