Sam Butterworth

As a Lecturer in Medicinal Chemistry Sam is involved in the development and delivery of the Medicinal Chemistry course that forms an integral part of the new Master of Pharmacy (MPharm) undergraduate degree programme within the College of Medical and Dental Sciences at the University of Birmingham.

Sam joined the university from AstraZeneca where he worked for 8 years. During this time he was accountable for chemistry strategy and delivery for all phases of discovery projects through externalised pre-portfolio collaborations, HTS, Lead Generation, Lead Optimisation to Pre-clinical development. His work at AstraZeneca led to the development of a promising targeted anti-cancer agent AZD9291, that is currently undergoing phase 3 clinical trials in late stage lung cancer.

His research group works on applying synthetic and biological chemistry to study and solve biological problems of relevance to human health. One key theme of this work is the utilization of the cell’s biological machinery to selectively activate molecules to kill cancer cells with specific mutations, or to selectively reprogram the activity of key immune cells. All projects are conducted in collaboration with biomedical researchers and clinicians, allowing testing of compounds in the most relevant biological models.

Sam was awarded a M Chem at the University of Manchester and a D Phil at Oxford.

Sam Butterworth