PIKE RESEARCH GROUP

Mina, a Biochemistry graduate from Aston University, is currently pursuing her PhD as an MIBTP student at Aston. Her research focuses on understanding the role of the human water channel AQP4 in health and disease. Additionally, she's engaged in a mini project as part of the Pike group at the University of Birmingham exploring Redox-Active Foldamer-DNA Scaffolds for Sensing. Beyond academia, Mina enjoys socializing with friends and spending quality time with her family.

Helena is a final year MSci student at the University of Birmingham. She recently completed an industrial placement at Evotec’s Abingdon site where she synthesised and developed small drug molecules for disease treatment. Within Dr Pike’s research group, she focused on synthesis of light-responsive helical oligomers for use in catalysis. In her spare time, Helena enjoys playing tennis and the saxophone.

Michael is currently a fourth year student on his MSci Chemistry course at the University of Birmingham. He has completed a year in industry at Evotec as a medicinal chemist developing small molecule drugs. He enjoys running, reading and playing board games in his spare time.

Craig completed his undergraduate degree at The University of Edinburgh, Scotland, in 2014. He worked on his MChem project under the supervision of Prof. Polly Arnold, synthesizing borate-tethered N-heterocyclic carbenes for application in “Frustrated Lewis Pair” (FLP) chemistry. In 2015, Craig moved to the National University of Singapore for his PhD with Dr. Rowan Young, where he worked on metal and non-metal based Frustrated Lewis Pair (FLP) chemistry. He then joined the Philp/Stoddart group at Northwestern University, USA, as a postdoctoral scholar in 2019 to work in the area of supramolecular systems chemistry. Craig joined the Pike group in 2021 as a PDRA working on the development of functional supramolecular architectures.

Oliver did his MSci in Chemistry at the University of Birmingham with the Grainger group.  He joined the Pike group for a summer research project leading up to his final year of the degree in the summer of 2023 where he is contributing to the synthesis of helical oligomers designed for applications in synthesis. In his spare time he enjoys playing the cello, writing music and playing video games. 

Gurshinder completed her MSci degree at the University of Birmingham (UK), She has also completed an analytical chemistry industrial placement at AstraZeneca, Macclesfield (UK). For her Master’s project in Dr Pike’s group, she looked at the synthesis and characterisation of a novel foldamers for functional applications. Post-graduation, she is currently doing her PhD at the University of Oxford. In her spare time, she enjoys creating meaningful artwork, reading fiction novels, and playing board and card games.

Matt completed his MSci degree at the University of Birmingham. He previously completed a year in industry at the GSK site in Stevenage as an organic synthetic chemist making small molecule drugs for disease treatment. Matt joined the Pike group for his Master's project working on synthesis and analysis of a hybrid supramolecular scaffolds under the supervision of Dr Pike and Professor Tucker. He is interested in organic synthetic chemistry and is currently pursuing this through a PhD at the University of Bristol. In his spare time, Matt enjoys baking, swimming, and photography.

Tyla is a final year student currently working on a joint MSci project between the Pike and Peacock group researching the development of hybrid foldamer scaffolds. He enjoys going on walks with his German shepherd, playing guitar and watching David Lynch films.

Josef Dann joined the group for his MSci project in autumn of 2021, and worked on the synthesis of foldamers for catalytic purposes. Josef currently has a position working at Evotech.

Steffan Walker-Griffiths joined us in 2022 for a summer research project funded by University of Birmingham, Department of Chemistry. He worked on the synthesis of novel foldamers. Today, Stefan is pursuing a PhD at the university of Birmingham under the supervision Dr Joseph Beames, working in the area of advanced solution phase spectroscopy and computational chemistry.

Adam joined the Pike group (2020-2021) and worked on the development of functional foldamers.

Alice joined the Pike group (2020-2021) as an MSci student for her joint project with Dr Andy Jupp.