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We warmly invite alumni from the research groups of Prof. Nicholas Turner and Prof. Sabine Flitsch (University of Manchester, along with interested guests, to join us for a special celebration of Chemical Biology. This event aims to bring together former and current members of both groups to reconnect, reflect on past achievements, and explore exciting developments at the interface of chemistry, biocatalysis, and carbohydrate chemistry. 

Date: 16-17 April 2026

Attendance to the scientific event is free of charge.
If you would like to attend, please register here: 

Please register early, as places are allocated on a first-come, first-served basis. 
As this event has received its maximum capacity, the registration is temporarily closed. 


Scientific Programme

Thursday 16th April 2026
Registration
09:00 – 09:30         Refreshments and registration
Session 1
09:30 – 10:00         Nick and Sabine: Welcome and opening remarks
10:00 – 10:25         Godwin Aleku, Mapping Sequence–Activity Relationships to Enable Rapid Biocatalyst Discovery and Engineering
10:25 – 10:50         Ian Archer, Talk title TBC
10:50 – 11:15         Roslyn Bill, New Insights into the Regulation of the CNS Water Channel Aquaporin-4: from Cell Biology to Clinical Trials
11:15 – 11:40         Cara Brocklehurst, Tackling synthetic challenges and applying synthetic technologies across the Novartis drug discovery portfolio
11:40 – 12:05         Reuben Carr, Petri dishes & Pitch decks: A scientist’s leap into innovation

12:05 – 12:55         Lunch

Session 2
13:00 – 13:25        James Dowden / Talk title TBC
13:25 – 13:50         Scott France,  Leveraging Biocatalytic Cascades for the Commercial Manufacture of Enlicitide (MK-0616)
13:50 – 14:15         Anthony Green, Building Enzymes with New Function
14:15 – 14:40         Gideon Grogan, Biooxidations in Edinburgh, Manchester and York: From Fungi to Fusions and back again

14:40 – 15:10        Refreshments

Session 3
15:15 – 15:40         Vicente Gotor-Fernandez, A golden era in Biocatalysis. Enzymes in multicatalytic approaches
15:40 – 16:05         Josef Voglmeir, title tbc
16:05 – 16:30        Rachel Heath, Chemo-enzymatic Nylon Recycling: From Milligrams to Tonnes
16:30 – 16:55        Sarah Lovelock, Biocatalytic Approaches to Nucleic Acid Therapeutics Manufacturing


Friday 17th April 2026
Session 4
10:00 – 10:25        Derek Macmillan, Talk title TBC
10:25 – 10:50        Juan Mangas-Sanchez, Asymmetric synthesis through artificial cascades combining organocatalysis and enzyme catalysis
10:50 – 11:15         Sarah Montgomery, Ahead of the game: unsolved challenges in biocatalysis
11:15 – 11:40         Jolanda van Munster, Talk title TBC
11:40 – 12:05        Bettina Nestl, Catalophore-guided insights in enzyme discovery and engineering

12:05 – 13:05         Lunch

Session 5
13:05 – 13:30         Iustina Slabu, Talk title TBC
13:30 – 13:55         Bo Yuan, Stereocomplementary synthesis of novel molecules enabled by enzyme design 
13:55 – 14:20         Rein Ulijn, Towards a Universal Assembly Code for Peptide Materials
14:20 – 14:45         Iain Wilson, Bring together natural, remodelled and synthetic glycans on arrays
14:45 – 15:10         Matthew Thompson, Reimagining what is possible with enzymes: AI x Physics

Closing remarks

Sponsors: 
We would like to thank our sponsors for their generous support.

Gold sponsors:

• Prozomix

Silver sponsors:

• Johnson Matthey

Bronze sponsors:

• Asynt
• Flurochem