Research
Research groups
Research interests
- Chemical Biology
- Organic Synthesis
- Medicinal Chemistry
- Molecular Recognition
Current research
Group research focuses on the use of organic synthesis to address problems in biology, medicine and materials; working in collaboration with experts in their respective fields. The primary approach is structure guided rational design followed by synthesis and evaluation.
RCUK, including the BBSRC and EPSRC, have supported a broad range of research projects, including:
Protein-protein interaction inhibition
Tools to interrogate protein misfolding conditions
Foldamers: programmable 3D architectures
Molecular recognition
Research projects
Completed projects
Publications
Pagination
Teaching
Sam is a passionate educator, holding a Senior Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy.
He has taught chemistry and chemical biology in small group tutorials/supervisions, and whole cohort lectures, at the Universities of Cambridge, Oxford and Southampton. This encompasses core, optional, and specialised topics across all years of the respective undergraduate programmes.
Biography
Dr Sam Thompson joined the School of Chemistry at the University of Southampton in October 2016, as a Lecturer in Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry, and was promoted to an Associate Professor in 2023.
Sam grew up in Lincolnshire and received his MChem from Exeter College, Oxford (2004) spending the final year with Prof. Ben Davis FRS in the historic Dyson Perrins Laboratory. He moved to St Edmund’s College, Cambridge for a PhD (2008) with Dr Martin Smith working on: (i) cascade routes to polycyclic alkaloids; and (ii) enantioselective carbon-carbon bond formation under phase-transfer catalysis. Returning to Oxford in 2009 he did a short medicinal chemistry postdoc sponsored by CRUK with Profs. Steve Davies and Angela Russell aimed at developing small molecule drugs for cancer targets.
Between 2010 and 2016 he held Junior Research Fellowships at Pembroke College and Lady Margaret Hall, and was the team leader for the group of Prof. Andrew Hamilton FRS during his tenure as Vice-Chancellor at Oxford. This work was multidisciplinary – bringing together organic synthesis, supramolecular chemistry, and chemical biology to develop new approaches to mediate therapeutically relevant protein-protein interactions.