Catherine O'Leary-Steele, Senior Scientist

Name: Catherine O'Leary-Steele

Job Title: Senior Scientist

Hi, my name is Catherine and I joined Lhasa in 2010, following a postdoc with Dr Stuart Warriner and Prof. Alison Baker at Leeds University.I was involved in an inter-disciplinary research project between the Chemistry Department and the Plant Centre which employed a Chemical Genetics approach to investigate peroxisomal protein import.

My background is in Organic Chemistry and I graduated from Oxford University in 2005 with an Mchem degree. This allowed me to spend a full year in the lab in my fourth year, completing a Part II project with Prof. Steve Davies, studying stereoselective enamide functionalistion.
This lab experience encouraged me to study for a PhD in Organic Chemistry and I subsequently joined Prof. Adam Nelson’s group in Leeds. My research involved using Diversity-Oriented Synthesis to generate a library of structurally diverse, natural product-like, small molecules.

Whilst I really loved my time in the lab, after a taste of computational chemistry and biology during my postdoc, I was excited to apply chemistry in a computer-based environment to aid drug design.

I have worked in several research areas during my time at Lhasa, but the majority of my work has focused on metabolite prediction. I love the diversity of the projects I’ve been involved with and I especially value the collaborative environment within our science team.

Outside of work my favourite things to do include spending time with my kids and friends, playing netball, baking and running - both in the competitive sense and chasing my twins!