Cardiff School of Chemistry

PhD/MPhil Titles (2012 - 13 Session)

Potential PhD Project Titles 2012/13

Cardiff School of Chemistry

The School of Chemistry has a number of PhD studentships available from October 2012. Positions are available in all areas of chemistry. The majority of our projects come with funding for tuition fees and include a stipend to cover living expenses. Anyone interested in carrying out research leading to the degree of PhD in Cardiff should contact the postgraduate admissions tutor, Professor Thomas Wirth (Email: Wirth@cardiff.ac.uk , tel: +44 (0)29 2087 6968) in the first instance. Further information about the individual projects can be obtained by contacting the supervisor directly.

Professor Rudolf Allemann

1. Dihydrofolate Reductase and the Physical Basis of Enzyme Catalysis

2. Chemical Wizardry: How nature handles carbocations

3. Intracelluar Biphotonic Nanoswitches: control of cellular pathways with light

4. Combining synthetic chemistry and biology approaches to generate novel drugs

5. Medical Chemistry to Control Auto-immune Diseases like Arthritis

Professor Gary Attard

1. Understanding the synthesis of shape-controlled nanoparticles and their electrocatalytic properties

Dr Jonathan Bartley

1. Supported mixed metal oxide catalysts

Professor Mike Bowker

1. Selective oxidation catalysis

2. Nanoscience studies of surface structure and reactivity

Professor Kingsley Cavell and Dr Damien Murphy

1. Novel paramagnetic nickel complexes in catalysis: Mechanistic insights through ligand design and advanced EPR studies

Professor Peter Edwards

1. New facially capping ligands for the control of stability and shape in coordination chemistry and catalysis

2. Multidentate nitrogen polypodal and macrocyclic ligands in non-invasive biomedical imaging

Dr Mark Elliott

1. Desymmetrisation strategies towards complex lycopodium alkaloids

Professor Stan Golunski

1. Water purification by catalytic wet air oxidation (CWAO)

Professor Kenneth Harris

1. Advancing new computational techniques for structure determination using powder X-ray diffraction data

2. New structural insights on biological materials by powder diffraction techniques

3. Understanding fundamentals of crystallization processes by in situ NMR and other techniques

4. Exploiting solid state inclusion phenomena in materials applications

5. Molecular motion in organic materials using solid-state NMR techniques

Professor Peter Knowles

1. New computational methods for molecular electronic structure

Dr Damien Murphy

1. Pressure effects in homogeneous catalysis; investigation of spin dynamics via pulsed EPR

Dr Jamie Platts

1. Computational Screening of Metal-Based Telomerase Inhibitors.

Dr Simon Pope and Dr Niek Buurma

1. Novel luminescent gold complexes as dual therapeutic/imaging agents

Dr James Redman

1. Synthesis, Analysis and Biological Activity of Cyclic Peptides

2. Small Molecules for Perturbing RNA Interactions in Cells

3. Synthesis of Amino Acids as Building Blocks for Nucleic Acid Binding Peptides

Dr Stuart Taylor

1. Preparation of new catalysts using mechanical grinding procedures

Dr Benjamin Ward

1. Catalytic applications of the Alkaline Earth Metals

Dr Karen Wilson

1. Tailored catalysts for the conversion of biomass to chemicals

2. Designer catalysts for the synthesis of renewable fuels

Professor Thomas Wirth

1. Diazo Compounds In Continuous Flow Technology