Jon from Discovery Chemistry

• • Discovery chemistry

  • Matt - synthetic chemistry
  • Galith - synthetic chemistry
  • Theresa - synthetic chemistry
  • Richard - computational chemistry
  • Attilla - computational chemistry
  • Jon - medicinal chemistry
  • Sara - synthetic chemistry
  • Linette - physical chemistry
  • Julie - protein crystallographer
  • Matthew - physical chemistry
  • Chester - medicinal chemistry
  • Denise - synthetic chemistry
  • Hiroki - medicinal chemistry

I graduated with a BSc(Hons) degree in chemistry and PhD in synthetic organic chemistry, both from the University of Manchester. I was sponsored for the final year of my PhD by AstraZeneca through a bursary scheme.

"I find working at AstraZeneca incredibly interesting and rewarding. There are always new challenges to overcome and I am learning new skills all the time" Jon

My interest in a career in medicinal chemistry at AstraZeneca was sparked through the annual Med. Chem. Workshop run in January, and then I applied for a job through the post-graduate recruitment process, which involved technical, medicinal chemistry and competency interviews, and presentation of my PhD work, spread over a day and a half.

My job at AstraZeneca was initially as an Associate Team Leader (ATL) on a project looking for a treatment for rheumatoid arthritis. I managed one synthetic chemist and spent about half my time in the lab working on synthetic chemistry targets Id set for my team. The rest of my time was taken up with an intensive training schedule, where I learned about everything from medicinal chemistry and disease biology, to people management and use of specialised computer software for drug design.

After two years, I was promoted to the role of Team Leader and since then I have worked on several early stage projects looking for drugs to combat osteoarthiritis, emphysema and more recently, cancer. I have managed teams of between one and five synthetic chemists, and my role is less focussed on lab work and more on analysing biological and physical data on compounds to decide what my synthetic chemistry team should make next.

This involves a lot of interaction with scientists from other disciplines within the company, from physical and computational chemists to molecular biologists and drug metabolism specialists. I have also been involved with projects at other AstraZeneca sites in the UK and Sweden. Good interpersonal skills and the ability to present scientific information to various audiences are both important aspects of my job.

I find working at AstraZeneca incredibly interesting and rewarding. There are always new challenges to overcome and I am learning new skills all the time. It can be stressful at times when there are deadlines to meet, but the atmosphere at AstraZeneca is supportive, and I couldn't wish for better people to work with.