Mhairi is an experienced medicinal chemist, who has worked at BioAscent for the past six years, and recently transitioned from the Medicinal Chemistry team to become a manager in the Compound Management team. In our latest blog, Mhairi shares her career history, her passion for science, and why she was attracted to the fresh challenge in Compound Management.

From an early age, Mhairi was naturally curious about science.  She quickly realised that chemistry and a career that would allow her to contribute to drug discovery was the right path for her. Mhairi studied Chemistry with Medicinal Chemistry at the University of Glasgow with a formative industrial placement year at Syngenta.  Mhairi stayed on at Glasgow to complete her PhD focused on the synthesis of the first enantiomerically pure benzodiazepinones with wound healing activity working under Dr Rudi Marquez.  

Mhairi commented, “I was awarded a Kelvin Smith scholarship for interdisciplinary projects, which saw my PhD work spanning across the chemistry and biology departments. I would synthesise the molecules and then take them to the biology labs, culture the cells and then test the molecules. This was a great experience.”

A JSPS summer scholarship during her PhD took her to the labs of Prof Keisuke Suzuki at The Tokyo Institute of Technology.  This was a fantastic cultural experience with the particular highlight of meeting Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko.

Whilst concluding her PhD, Mhairi joined the European Lead Factory at the University of Dundee as a Drug Discovery Scientist, working in Angus Morrison’s team. Here she gained experience in resynthesising hits and optimising lead compounds from initial high throughput screening hits. In 2018, the European Lead Factory funding concluded, this coincided with BioAscent’s expansion into integrated drug discovery and the establishment of their chemistry and biology departments, the whole chemistry team was transitioned across.

“It was challenging in the early days at BioAscent, I was just back from maternity leave and we were on part-time contracts.  It was a leap of faith for us all, but the chemists were a tight team and we were ready.  Work flowed quickly and the workload grew with larger customer projects coming in, and it wasn’t long before we started to grow the chemistry team.” 

During her time in the chemistry team, Mhairi worked on various projects and some challenging molecules. Working within the team, she researched, designed and carried out synthesis to access families of organic compounds, driving projects forward and communicating progress to customers. Mhairi also became the Supercritical Fluid Chromatography superuser. 

“I found that I particularly enjoyed training chemists on the technology and coordinating sample purification in line with project priorities with the small team of users.  This led me to think about moving into a leadership role. When I returned from my second maternity leave, I decided the time was right, so I applied for a position in the compound management team and moved across as a secondee in March 2024.

“It has been great to move into a different part of the business. I was interested in having a new challenge, and to see another side to BioAscent. There isn’t a degree or formal qualification for compound management, so the team comes from different academic backgrounds and disciplines. People often view compound management as logistics and project management, but the scientific challenges are significant and varied. The diversity in our team allows us to meet those challenges.” 

Mhairi’s role as Compound Management Team Leader became permanent in Sep 2024, and she is now responsible for a small team and multiple large client accounts. 

“I am able to bring my knowledge, expertise and strong chemistry background to the team and contribute this skillset to the atmosphere of continuous improvement.  In compound management we are dealing with all sorts of chemicals for our customers, I can train the wider team on risk assessments and best practices in handling those chemicals. We also need to be able to deal with compounds that have solubility and volatility issues. No problem in a chemistry lab, but that can represent a significant challenge in a high throughput environment.”

Mhairi has been spending time working with the highly experienced team in compound management to gain a deep understanding and become familiar with the systems and processes that are in place, so she can confidently troubleshoot more complex problems.  Having this broader view and understanding of BioAscent and the integration between the different departments will enable Mhairi to spread that awareness internally, but also add real value to customer projects, which include a number of AI-driven biotechs who use BioAscent to accelerate their screening and design-make-test cycles.

“Biologists and chemists don’t always speak the same language and communication can be difficult between different disciplines, but by having an opportunity to move around within BioAscent and see things from different perspectives and to support the delivery of a truly integrated and seamless approach to our customers.”

Mhairi is also passionate about women in STEM and as a female team leader at BioAscent, she can support and inspire younger women who are seeking to pursue a career in science, especially here in Scotland where BioAscent is one of very few drug discovery employers. 

“It is great to have had the opportunities I have had so far at BioAscent. I am keen to continue to broaden my wider understanding of the company, and gain experience within the compound management department, which I hope will equip me with the skills to have more of a role in supporting BioAscent’s ongoing growth in the coming years.”