LAB MEMBERS
EAMONN READING - PI
Eamonn obtained his MSci in Chemistry from the University of Bristol, where he performed research with Dr Wuge Briscoe and Dr Gareth Owen. He then went on to obtain a DPhil at the University of Oxford within the laboratory of Professor Dame Carol Robinson in 2015.
Eamonn then moved to King's College London as a post-doctoral researcher within the laboratory of Professor Paula Booth before, in 2016, becoming a BBSRC Future Leader (now called Discovery) Fellow.
Eamonn is now a UKRI Future Leaders Fellow (awarded in 2019) and Senior Lecturer in Chemistry at King's College London. He is an appointed committee member of the RSC Analytical Biosciences Group and the BBSRC Pool of Experts (2019-24), and has sat on BBSRC Committee D and E research panels.
DIETMAR HAMMERSCHMID - POST-DOC
Dietmar pursued his undergraduate studies in nutritional science and chemistry at the University of Vienna. After that, he continued with a master degree in biochemistry, for which he joined the mass spectrometry group of Prof. Andreas Rizzi as a thesis student in 2014.
In 2015, he moved to the University of Antwerp where he became a PhD student in the lab's of Prof. Frank Sobott and Prof. Sylvia Dewilde. His PhD focus was mainly on the characterization of membrane proteins by native mass spectrometry. Besides that, he investigated the role of cold atmospheric plasma as a novel structural mass spectrometry tool for hydroxyl radical footprinting of proteins. He finished his PhD at the University of Antwerp in October 2019.
Dietmar joined the Reading lab in 2019 as a UKRI-funded postdoctoral researcher.
VALERIA CALVARESI - POST-DOC
Valeria received her master’s degree in Pharmaceutical Chemistry in Sapienza, University of Rome. She then won a national competition for talented Italian graduate students to undertake a period of research abroad. Moving to the University of Paris XIII and Institut Pasteur to work in the field of protein mass spectrometry.
She then fell in love for hydrogen-deuterium exchange mass spectrometry (HDX-MS) approaches and got a Marie-Curie PhD fellowship between University of Copenhagen, with Prof. Kasper Rand, and GSK vaccines in Italy, with Dr Nathalie Norais, focusing on the characterization of vaccine antigens and membrane proteins in native state by HDX-MS.
Valeria then moved to the Department of Chemistry of King’s College London as a postdoctoral researcher, to continue studying membrane proteins and vaccine antigens by HDX-MS. In 2022, Valeria was welcomed in the Reading group!
BEN LEWIS - PHD STUDENT
Ben achieved an undergraduate degree in Biochemistry from the University of East Anglia in 2018. His final year research project was spent in the John Innes Centre testing novel compounds against DNA Gyrase for antibiotic potential, under Professor Tony Maxwell.
Ben's main research interest has always been protein chemistry, with applications to global health concerns such as antimicrobial resistance (AMR).
Ben joined the Reading lab in 2019 on a King's College London Studentship.
CHLOE BAILEY - PHD STUDENT
Chloe‘s interests lie with interdisciplinary science, where the boundaries between biology, physics and chemistry are blurred.
During her Physics undergraduate at the University of Exeter, Chloe’s projects focused on the application of physics-based methods, such as Raman and FTIR spectroscopy, to biological systems. As a postgraduate researcher with Dr Peter Petrov, she used microscopic and spectroscopic techniques to investigate the effect of short-chain alcohols on the physical properties of erythrocyte membranes.
Chloe joined the Reading Group in 2021 as a BBSRC LIDo iCASE student with Waters Corp. She aims to advance knowledge of membranes and interdisciplinary methods with her project.
RYAN LAWRENCE - PHD STUDENT
Ryan achieved an undergraduate degree in Biochemistry from UCL in 2021. His final year research project, under Prof Ivan Gout, focused on the antioxidant function of Coenzyme A in regulating the metastasis suppressor protein NME1.
Ryan's main research interests lie within Biochemistry, its many applications, and implication in translational and interdisciplinary research.
Ryan joined the Reading group in 2021 as a BBSRC LIDo iCASE student with UCB BioPharma. His project will explore the dynamics of membrane protein multidrug resistance pumps using hydrogen/deuterium exchange mass spectrometry and Cryo-EM.
PREVIOUS MEMBERS
--------------------------------------------
Polina Heatley - MSci Student, 2021-22
Laila Shah - MSci Student, 2020-21 / Next steps: PhD within Prof Justin Benesch's group at the University of Oxford
Tim Gemeinhardt - Erasmus+ Student, 2019-20 / Next steps: PhD within Prof Nicole Francis’ group at the Montreal Clinical Research Institute
Tabasom Haghighi - Summer Student, 2018 / Next steps: PhD within Prof. Molly Stevens group at Imperial College London