Stephen Headey

Stephen is a lecturer and researcher within the School of Science. His research interests are fragment-based drug design (FBDD), medicinal chemistry and the use of biophysical techniques including SPR and NMR to investigate protein interactions.

Stephen works on academic and commercial research projects aimed at improving human health. His core interest is in the discovery of new medicines using fragment-based drug design (FBDD). FBDD uses biophysical techniques such as NMR spectroscopy and surface plasmon resonance (SPR) to screen compound libraries to detect hit compounds for a protein target involved in disease. The compounds are then enlarged and optimised using medicinal chemistry to create a high affinity compound as a potential starting point for a new therapeutic.

Stephen collaborates with medicinal chemists, biological laboratories and X-ray crystallogrphers as part of multidisciplinary teams. Students are encouraged and trained in multiple skills to contribute to the research aims of the lab and develop their talents.

Stephen also provides SPR expertise to commercial projects analysing protein-protein interactions including biologics. And provides chemical and protein structure determination using NMR spectroscopy.

Key activities: SPR, NMR, FBDD