Welcome to Street Research

Synthetic Chemist, Nanoscientist, Chemical Biologist, Science Communicator & STEM Ambassador

About Me

About Me

Welcome to the Research homepage for Steven Street! This website explains more about who I am, what I do, what I've achieved so far, and what I hope to achieve in the future. Currently I am a senior postdoctoral researcher in the Manners research group at the University of Victoria, spearheading research into the biological applications of low-dispersity polymer nanomaterials. These days, I mainly produce new nanomaterials through chemical synthesis, followed by assessing their potential applications in medicine through biophysical experiments and cell biology. I am actually a synthetic organic chemist by training though, having completed my PhD in 2017 as part of the Bristol Chemical Synthesis Centre for Doctoral Training (BCS-CDT) at the University of Bristol. During my PhD, I worked with Prof. M. Carmen Galan on the development of carbohydrate based small molecules with anti-cancer and anti-parasitic activity.


Why am I a Scientist?

I want to use my skills as a chemist to make the world a better place.

My motivations for being a scientist stem largely from a desire to help make the world a better place. We live in a turbulent world constantly faced by threats, some of which are natural, and others that are down to human activity. Life is extremely fragile, and we are all part of an incredibly complex, intertwined, co-dependant system. Every action we take has an effect on others and the world as a whole, and we can all have an impact on those around us. Whether it is through develping new drugs to treat diseases that claim countless numbers of lives, or developing new ways to combat climate change and generate clean energy, I wish to make my own small contribution to help solve some of the important challanges that we as humans collectively face.


Why did I study chemistry?

Because the entire universe and everything in it is built out of atoms...

Chemistry underpins everything around us, from the interactions of components within the cells inside our body to nuclear fusion processes occuring in the cores of stars millions of lightyears away. Despite making up the entire universe, it remains one of the most under-rated sciences, with physicists and biologists dominating the public perception of scientists. This is despite the tremendous contribution that chemists and chemistry have made to society, tackling everything from climate change and disease to the technology behind your TV! Indeed, many of todays greatest challenges lie in the realms of chemistry, and require chemical solutions. Improving healthcare, diagnosing and treating diseases such as cancer or SARS-CoV-2, taclking antibiotic resistance, developing and storing clean energy, developing new and renewable/recyclable materials, detecting explosives, and tackling climate change are just a few examples!

Chemistry is also the lowest level of organization which allows for design. Physics cannot be designed, only understood, whereas chemical systems have been created, manipulated, and refined by nature since the dawn of time. Whilst humans can also create and manipulate chemical systems, you migth be suprise to hear that our understanding and capabilities lack far behind nature!


What am I currently working on?

Can tiny nano-sized sticks diagnose and treat disease?

Being a synthetic chemist means that I like to play with 'molecular lego bricks' to create new molecules and structures that have never existed before. These tiny chemical structures (which are 1000-10,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair) can potentially be used to solve some of the many problems which the world faces today. I started my PhD at the Bristol Chemical Synthesis Centre for Doctoral Training (BCS-CDT) back in 2012 to work on solving problems such as those sbove, and consequently chose to work with Prof. M Carmen Galan developing new carbohydrate-based molecules that are capable of binding to G-Quadruplex DNA, an important area of anti-cancer drug design. During my PhD, I learnt how to perform biophysical, chemical and cellular biology experiments to assess the potency of small molecule therapeutics. After completing my PhD, I was interested in nucleic acid therapeutics and the promise they displayed for treating disease. Techologies such as CRISPR, Cancer immunotherapy, and nucleic acid vaccines were incredibly exciting to me and are making great progress, but are limited by the delivery technology used to get the active ingredients to their target locations. After reading this article in C&EN news, I knew what I wanted to work on next. I was aware of the research that Prof. Ian Manners was performing at Bristol on low dispersity 1D polymer nanomaterials, with the first water soluble examples just beginning to emerge. After speaking to Ian and doing some more research, it became apparent that these materials might have tremedous potential in nanomedicine. Luckily for me, the EPSRC agreed, and I was awarded an EPSRC Doctoral Prize Fellowship for 2 years to work with Prof. Manners on applying 1D polymer nanomaterials to biomedical applications. Since then, as part of the Manners group I've expanded my skills into polymer synthesis and nanoscience, and continued to develop the chemical and cellular biology skills that I first learnt during my PhD. Currently we are building a nanomedicine platform based around crystallization-driven self-assembly, developing modular polymer nanostructures that are capable of carrying cargo and entering cells. I hope that one day 1D polymer systems such as these can be used to deliver medicines of the future with greater effectiveness than ever before. Numerous challenges stand between our current knowledge and that goal, but I hope to solve these challenges in collaboration with others in the future!


Research


Research Interests

Functional molecules and materials that solve problems

My research interests stem from my desire to find chemical solutions to problems which plague mankind. These are centered around supramolecular, medicinal, polymer and materials chemistry, and include carbohydrate chemistry, flow chemistry and the application of chemical solutions to biological problems. Broadly speaking, it's the synthesis of functional new molecules, followed by their analysis and application to solve a specific problem.

Research in the Manners Group

Polymer Nanofibers For Nanomedicine Applications

My research in the Manners lab focuses on the applications of low dispersity nanomaterials produced via 'living' crystallization-driven self-assembly (CDSA). CDSA Is a powerful bottom-up method for producing nanomaterials with precisely controlled sizes, shapes, and surface functionality. CDSA is especially useful for generating non-sperical nanostructures, such as 1D nanofibers and 2D platelets. Since I joined the group, we have developed several different systems that are capable of entering cells, and carrying cargo of various sorts. We are uncovering fundamental new insights into how these unique 1D and 2D polymer materials interact with biological systems, which can help inform a new generation of polymeric nanomedicines. I am currently involved with all aspects of applying these materials into nanomedicine, ranging from technology to improve scalability, to new material design, new applications of existing materials, and the biological effects of materials currently developed. It's loads of fun, and every time we learn something new we just end up with even more questions to answer!

PhD Research In the Galan Group

PhD Supervisor: Professor M. Carmen Galan

Can Sugars Cure Cancer?

Cancer is one of the leading causes of death in the developed world. One of the problems that makes cancer so hard to treat is the fact that it’s caused by mutations of healthy cells within our bodies. Thus a great deal of scientific research is devoted to developing new selective ways to target tumour cells whilst leaving healthy cells alone. What exactly is cancer? Find out here.

Whilst many people picture DNA to exist in its double helix form, DNA can actually exist in a wide range of structures from single stranded DNA up to 4 stranded or quadruplex DNA. This type of DNA structure is a relatively new discovery, which occurs in numerous regions throughout the cells in your body and is especially prevalent in cancer cells. Quadruplex DNA forms the basis of several potential anti-cancer drug targets. Perhaps the most well-studied involves the enzyme telomerase, which is responsible for providing cancer cells with their immortality. Telomerase causes cellular immortality by binding to a region of DNA called telomeric DNA. The DNA in this region can however form these 4 stranded ‘G-quadruplex’ structures, and by doing so it inhibits the telomerase enzyme, and leads to errors in DNA replication and consequently cell death.

This is where chemists like myself come in. If you can encourage the formation of these G-quadruplex structures in your telomeres by binding a small molecule to them, it will inhibit telomerase. Telomerase is overexpressed in 90% of cancer cells, but not expressed in healthy cells, so telomerase inhibition leads to the selective death of cancer cells over other healthy cells. When other G-quadruplex anti-cancer targets are considered too, one small molecule that is capable of binding to G-quadruplex DNA can kill cancer cells in multiple ways, resulting in a potent anti-cancer effect. Despite the considerable research in this area, we are yet to see a G-quadruplex interactive small molecule pass clinical trials and be an approved medication. This is smething we hope to change.

My project (which was part funded by Novartis and the first in the group on this topic) was aimed at looking to see if sugars (carbohydrates) such as Glucose can be modified and used as small molecules which bind to G-quadruplex structures. Other qudruplex binding molecules are poorly water soluble and are excreted by the body quickly, which is one of the reasons why none of them have been successful to date. Carbohydrates can overcome some of these problems, and to date have recieved limited attention, so we were hoping to use them to develop some new quadruplex active anti-cancer drugs!

Over the course of my PhD, I designed, developed and synthesized a completely new class of carbohydrate-aromatic conjugates. The library of around 30 new compounds was tested for the ability to stabilise therapeutically relevant DNA structures in a variety of different experiments, as well as testing their potential anti-cancer activity in vitro. Several interesting leads were identified, which resulted in several publications and further research by others in the group, which today remains active in the G-quadruplex field!

Taking this project from it's inception as an idea through to in vitro testing was incredibly rewarding, and I developed skills and expertise across a wide range of drug development techniques in the process. These include chemical synthesis, purification of challenging compounds by normal-phase and reverse-phase flash and preparative chromatography, analytical HPLC, mass spectrometry, NMR, Isothermal Titration Calorimetry (ITC), Circular Dichroism (CD), UV-Vis & Fluorescence Spectroscopy, Molecular Modelling, Computer Aided Drug-Design, Cell culture, cytotoxicity assays, data processing and much more. It was a really interesting PhD project, in a great group, that I really enjoyed!

Other Research Experience & Previous Projects

Doctoral Candidate - Novartis Institute for Biomedical Research (NIBR), Basel, Switzerland – Dr. G. J. Hollingworth

“Carbohydrate-based selective quadruplex DNA binding ligands with anti-cancer activity”

As part of my PhD project, I was lucky enough to be able to undertake a paid 3 month industry placement at Novartis' headquarters in Basel, Switzerland. Here I continued working on my PhD project while gaining valuable experience of how 'big pharma' companies operate. While at Novartis, I started several collaborations with Novartis scientists who were experienced in areas of interest to me. One such collaboration was international with a scientist at NIBR in Cambridge, MA, USA who was part of the computer-aided drug design team. They helped me to develop a model for docking and virtually screening new compounds, something that I pursued further after my placement had ended.

JSPS Summer Programme Fellowship - J. I. Yoshida Research Group, Kyoto University, Japan

“Flow micro-reactor based cationic living polymerizations: Studies on initiation by electrogenerated acid and glycosyl cations”

In the summer of 2014, I visited Japan after winning a prestigious fellowship from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) as part of their Summer Programme. I visited the lab of Professor Jun-ichi Yoshida, a world expert in flow micro-reactor chemistry who is based at Kyoto University. Prof. Yoshida conducts research on flow micro-reactor based polymerisations, especially cation-pool initiated living polymerisations and ultrafast reactions in flow micro-reactors or ‘flash chemistry’. My project was based on producing new biopolymers by initiating a living polymerization with glycosyl cations (carbohydrates) under flow micro-reactor conditions. This is quite an ambitious task, which combines two areas of Prof. Yoshida’s research. My project yielded interesting results, and I ended up working on solving a 30 year old problem regarding the source of electrogenerated acid in the process of trying to achieve my goal! I gained lots of experience and many new skills, including how to design, build and work with flow reactors as well as writing successful research proposals. Building relations with Prof. Yoshida was an invaluable experience and I would love the opportunity to return to Japan in the future!

More information about my trip to Japan can be found here.

J. C. Morales Research Group, CSIC Cartuja, Sevilla, Spain

“Carbohydrate-based selective quadruplex DNA binding ligands with anti-cancer activity”

As part of my PhD project, I was also able to undertake a 2 month placement in the lab of my co-supervisor, Dr. Juan Carlos Morales at the CSIC IIQ in Sevilla, Spain. being able to live and work in another country for several months was an amazing opportunity, and I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it. Here I was involved with learning some of the techniques necessary for testing the new compounds that I had developed.

BCS-CDT Research Sabbatical 3 - A. P. Davis Research Group, University of Bristol, UK

“Synthetic Chloride Anion Carriers as Transmembrane Transporters”

In this research broadening sabbatical I was working with Professor Anthony Davis on developing cholapod based synthetic chloride anion carriers. These compounds have potential use as transmembrane transporters for use with chanelopathies such as cystic fibrosis. I synthesized two novel receptors, and studied their activity along with the activity of previously synthesized receptors to establish a structure-activity relationship. These receptors were analyzed for their activity in three different ways: firstly their affinity for chloride anions was quantified through NMR titration and also using an extraction based method which allows for the determination of the binding constant (Ka) and has a higher detection limit than NMR titration. Secondly the cholapod’s ability to permeate a cell membrane was tested through a transport assay which uses vesicles. The influx of chloride ions was measured by using a chloride sensitive fluorescent dye. The data obtained on one of the receptors developed by me was used as a control cholapod receptor in a pulbication by the group in Angewandte Chemie.

BCS-CDT Research Sabbatical 2 - V. K. Aggarwal Research Group, University of Bristol, UK

“Asymmetric Synthesis of Tertiary Alcohols & Amines by Lithiation-Borylation Methodology”

In this research broadening sabbatical I was working with Professor Varinder Aggarwal FRS on producing multigram scales of enantioenriched tertiary boronic esters, and then exploring their transformations into enantioenriched tertiary alcohols and α-tertiary amines. The highlights of this rotation was successfully producing over 5 grams of the tertiary boronic ester, in a 94 % yield and with a >99:1 e.r. This material was sold to sigma-aldrich, and I was the first CDT rotation student who managed to make 5 grams of this material with an e.r. of >99:1 (high enough quality to be used by Aldrich). The last part of my project was involved with developing the conversion of the tertiary pinacol boronic esters into α-tertiary amines using a reagent developed by Morken. Morken’s chemistry didn’t work for tertiary substrates, so achieving a 40 % yield in this reaction was a pleasing result.

BCS-CDT Research Sabbatical 1 - D. F. Wass Research Group, University of Bristol, UK

“Catalytic Upgrading of Ethanol for Advanced Biofuels”

In this research broadening sabbatical I was working with Professor Duncan Wass on developing and testing ruthenium based catalysts for the upgrading of ethanol to n-butanol, an advanced biofuel. A novel catalytic system for the coupling of ethanol to selectively produce butanol via Guerbet type chemistry was discovered by the group. My project was involved with exploring phosphine-amine based ligands, with a view to improve upon the yield of n-butanol produced whilst maintaining the selectivity. I developed and tested 3 new ligands, and improved upon the previous highest yield of n-butanol achieving a yield of 28 % making it the best ligand tested to date. I also tested and proved that the phosphine- amine ligands act at a similar rate if the ligands are used in situ as their quaternary amine salts. This was an important development as the main application of this chemistry is in industrial processes, where the use of conventional air sensitive phosphine ligands is complicated and expensive. The use of air and moisture stable quaternary amine ligands is therefore an important improvement. I also produced a reaction progress kinetic plot for one of the ligand systems, which is useful for insights into the mechanism and deactivation of the catalyst. My work during this sabbatical contributed to a publication by the group in ACS Catalysis.

Undergraduate Project - H. M. Colquhoun Research Group, University of Reading, UK

“Polymer-supported Molecular Tweezers as Sensors for Polynitroaromatic Compounds”

Under the supervision of Professor Howard Colquhoun, my dissertation was aimed at developing polymer-supported molecular tweezers for use as sensors to detect polynitroaromatic compounds (NACs) such as TNT. This was a very interesting project that involved a combination of synthesis as well as a wide range of analytical techniques. The molecular tweezers used were of a similar design to the tweezers used in my summer project, with the vital difference that there was no electron deficient moiety present. The idea behind this was that by attaching the molecular tweezer onto a polymer, electron deficient aromatic species such as TNT would intercalate with the tweezer, and induce fluorescence quenching of the electron rich units. The polymer chosen had to display good mechanical properties for this application. Overall, two different novel polymer based tweezer systems were developed, with a total of 7 steps of synthesis each. Analysis consisted of using a non-explosive model nitoaromatic (2-5 dinitrobenzonitrile) and performing NMR Titrations, UV/Visible Titrations, Fluorescence quenching titrations, and solid state sensing studies (performed by casting thin films of the polymer). These experiments proved that the polymers did indeed exhibit fluorescence quenching of NACs, as well as having improved mechanical properties. Furthermore these new polymers could be cast into films – which was an improvement on previous work.

UROP Summer Placement - W. C. Hayes Research Group, University of Reading, UK

“Synthesis of novel healable supramolecular polymers through self-complimentary π-π stacking interactions”

Working under Professor Wayne Hayes, I undertook research into the development of supramolecular self-healing polymers. These polymers consisted of an electron deficient core attached to an electron rich molecular tweezer to form a motif which self-assembled through complimentary π-π stacking interactions in a ‘roman handshake’ style. These motifs were then grafted onto a polymer to assess their ability to self-heal under stress. I was responsible for choosing the polymer scaffold, developing the synthetic route and synthesizing the resulting polymeric materials. After choosing to develop a novel methacrylate based copolymer, I successfully synthesized several new molecules on a multigram scale including 2 novel polymers and presented my work to the group.

Junior Analyst, CEM Analytical Services Ltd, Ascot, Berkshire, UK

While working as an analyst for CEMAS, I was responsible for preparing and analysing samples from agrochemical field trials. I worked with a wide variety of equipment including UPLC/MS/MS and LC/MS with Symbiosis as well as GC and Ion Chromatography. All work done was compliant with GLP guidelines.

Publications


Publications

ORCID iD iconorcid.org/0000-0002-7635-8733

Scopus Author Profile

Google Scholar Profile

Web of Science ResearcherID

Total citations = 120, h-index = 5 (Scopus, July 2020).

7. "Imide Condensation as a Strategy for the Synthesis of Core Diversified G-Quadruplex Ligands with Anti-Cancer and Anti-Parasitic Activity"Street, S. T. G.; Peñalver, P.; O'Hagan, M.; Hollingworth, G. J.; Morales, J. C.*; Galan, M. C.* ChemRxiv. Preprint. 2020, 10.26434/chemrxiv.11955870.v1.

6. "Cellular Uptake and Targeting of Low Dispersity, Dual Emissive, Segmented Block Copolymer Nanofibers"Street, S. T. G.; He, Y.; Jin, X. H.; Hodgson, L.; Verkade, P.; Manners, I.* Chem. Sci. 2020, 10.1039/D0SC02593C.
Part of the 2020 Chemical Science HOT Article Collection.

5. "Extending the Scope of “Living” Crystallization-Driven Self-Assembly: Well-Defined 1D Micelles and Block Comicelles from Crystallizable Polycarbonate Block Copolymers" - Finnegan, J. R.; He, X.; Street, S. T. G.; Garcia-Hernandez, J. D.; Hayward, D. W.; Harniman, R. L.; Richardson, R. M.; Whittell, G. R.; Manners, I.* J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2018, 140, 17127.

4. “Investigating UV-Induced Electron-Driven Proton Transfer in a Chemically Modified A•T DNA Base Pair” – Röttger, K.; Marroux, H. J. B; Chemin, A. F. M.; Elsdon, E.; Oliver, T. A. A.; Street, S. T. G.; Henderson, A. S.; Galan, M. C.; Orr-Ewing, A. J.; Roberts, G. M. J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 2017, 121, 4448.

3. "Divalent Naphthalene Diimide Ligands Display High Selectivity for the Human Telomeric G-quadruplex in K+ Buffer"Street, S. T. G.; Chin, D.; Hollingworth, G. J.; Morales J. C.; Galan, M. C. Chem. Eur. J. 2017, 23, 6953.
Also see the Inside Front Cover here.

2. “Catalytic Conversion of Ethanol to n-Butanol using Ruthenium P-N ligand complexes” – Wingad, R. L.; Gates, P. J.; Street, S. T. G.; Wass, D. F. ACS Catalysis 2015, 5, 5822.

1. “A Flexible Solution to Anion Transport: Powerful Anionophores Based on a Cyclohexane Scaffold” - Cooper, J. A.; Street, S. T. G.; Davis, A. P. Angew. Chemie Int. Ed. 2014, 53, 5609.

Conferences Attended

Oral Presentations

  1. Accepted Speaker at Pacifichem in 2021 (if it happens!).
  2. One of 6 speakers at PCAMM 2019, at UBC, Vancouver, Canada, 2019.
  3. Visiting presentation at Nottingham University, hosted by Prof. Cameron Alexander, 2019.
  4. Selected to be the “Functional molecules and materials” speaker (1 of 5 themes) at the RSC sponsored Celebration of Bristol Chemistry VI, Bristol, UK, 2019.
  5. 14th International Conference on Materials Chemistry (MC14), Birmingham, UK, 2019.
  6. 102nd Canadian Chemistry Conference and Exhibition, Quebec, QC, Canada, 2019.
  7. 101st Canadian Chemistry Conference and Exhibition, Edmonton, AB, Canada, 2018.
  8. 6th International Meeting on Quadruplex Nucleic Acids, Prague, Czech Republic, 2017.
  9. RSC Carbohydrate Group 50th Anniversary Meeting 2016.
  10. 28th International Carbohydrate Symposium 2016, New Orleans, USA (published abstract).
  11. RSC Chemical Biology Postgraduate Symposium 2016 (runner-up).
  12. Bristol Organic & Biological Section 3rd Year talks 2016.
  13. BCS CDT Summer Conference 2015.
  14. MultiGlycoNano 2015, Bangor, UK.

Poster Presentations

  1. Doctoral Prize Celebration Reception, Bristol, UK, 2019.
  2. 6th International Meeting on Quadruplex Nucleic Acids, Prague, Czech Republic, 2017.
  3. Bio-Techne Chemistry Poster Symposium 2017 (winner of audience award).
  4. RSC Organic Division South West Regional Symposium 2017.
  5. BCS CDT Summer Conference 2016 (people’s choice prize-winner).
  6. Bristol Research Without Borders 2016. More information here.
  7. RSC Chemical Biology Symposium 2016.
  8. SET for Britain finals 2016.
  9. RSC Organic Division South West Regional Symposium 2016.
  10. Project feature in the Bristol Chemical Synthesis CDT report 2013 - 2015.
  11. Bristol Syngenta Poster Competition 2015 (runner-up).
  12. Festival of Postgraduate Research 2015, Bristol.
  13. RSC Chemical Biology and Bio-Organic Chemistry Postgraduate Symposium 2015.
  14. MultiGlycoNano 2015, Bangor, UK.
  15. JSPS Summer Programme poster session, 2014, Sokendai, Japan.

Links

The Manners Research Group Website

The Galan Research Group Website

The Bristol Chemical Synthesis Centre for Doctoral Training

Awards

Fellowships & Prizes

  1. 2017: Winner of an EPSRC Doctoral Prize Fellowship to work with Prof. Ian Manners FRS.
  2. 2017: Winner of the inaugral Bio-Techne Chemistry Poster Symposium 2017 Audience Award
  3. 2017: Winner of an SCI Messel Travel Bursary and a Bristol University Alumni Fund Bursary to present at the 6th International Meeting on Quadruplex Nucleic Acids.
  4. 2016: Winner of I’m a Scientist, Get me out of here: Drug Discovery Section (Outreach Competition, sponsored by the RSC). More information here and here. A report on the Drug Discovery Zone can be found here while you can read my thank you message here .
  5. 2016: Bristol BCS-CDT Summer Conference people’s choice poster competition prize winner.
  6. 2016: RSC Chemical Biology Postgraduate Symposium oral presentation runner-up prize winner.
  7. 2016: SET for Britain poster competition finalist.
  8. 2015: Bristol BCS-CDT Dragon’s Den runner-up prize-winner.
  9. 2015: Bristol Syngenta poster competition runner-up prize-winner.
  10. 2014: JSPS Summer Programme Fellow. Spent 3 months working with Professor J. I. Yoshida in Kyoto, Japan.
  11. 2012: PhD project selected by Novartis industry sponsors.
  12. 2011: CEMAS Prize for the most improved Chemistry Student during undergraduate degree.

Activities

Teaching & Volunteering

  1. 2020: British Columbia Science Fair (BCVSF) Judge.
  2. 2014-Present: Supervision and mentoring of several PhD students and visiting students.
  3. 2017: Outreach Teahcing Associate for Bristol ChemlabS, where I covered for the Director of Outreach for the summer months.
  4. 2012-Present: STEM ambassador who regularly gives outreach lectures to 16-18 year olds. You can see an example from when I visited Red Maids' School in Bristol here.
  5. 2013-Present: Supervision of 6 students including BCS-CDT PhD rotation students and summer students.
  6. 2016: 2016 Bristol BCS-CDT Syngenta Award Committee Member.
  7. 2015: Wrote & led a ‘directors-cut’ problem session for first year BCS-CDT postgraduates on carbohydrate NMR structural analysis.
  8. 2013: Postgraduate demonstrator for first year undergraduate organic chemistry labs.
  9. 2013 - 2014: Organised Christmas meals for ~60 people and ~45 people.
  10. 2009: Vice President of Childs Hall Junior Common Room.
  11. 2009: Student Services and Entertainment Representative for Student Union.
  12. 2008 - 2010: Student Mentor for Chemistry department.
  13. 2008: Welfare Rep and Assistant Social Rep for Childs Hall Junior Common Room.

Additional Training

  1. IP & Patents Course – Stephen J. Wilkinson, Partner at Stevens, Hewlett & Perkins in Bristol.
  2. Process Chemistry Course – Dr. David Lathbury, former head of process chemistry at AstraZeneca.
  3. Employability Course – Dr. David Fox, Vulpine Science & Learning (& former Research Director at Pfizer).
  4. Publishing Course – Wiley VCH.
  5. Project Management Course – Dr Fraser Robertson, Fistral Training and Consultancy Ltd.
  6. Science Communication Course - Piero Vitelli.
  7. Scientific Writing Course - Prof. Charl Faul.
  8. Researcher Ethics Course - Marianne Talbot.
  9. Computational Chemistry Course - Prof. Jeremy Harvey.
  10. First Aid Course.

Professional Membership

  1. Chartered Chemist (CChem)
  2. Member of the Royal Society of Chemistry (MRSC).
  3. Member of the Canadian Society for Chemistry (CSC).
  4. Member of the Society of Chemical Industry (SCI).
  5. Member of IBCarb.

Get in touch


Email
steve@streetresearch.co.uk
stevenstreet@uvic.ca
Follow me on Twitter!
Check out my Linkedin Profile:

Find me on ResearchGate!
My Researchgate Profile
Address
Manners Group
ELL255, Elliott Building
University of Victoria
3800 Finnerty Road
Victoria, BC
V8P 5C2
Canada

Project:Future by Subject

I recently won the "Drug Discovery" section of the I'm a Scientist: Get me out of here competition, and as the winner, I recieved £500 to use on an outreach activity of my choice.

My plan for the money is to create a careers website for secondary school students, who are making decisions about what subjects to study. This might be KS3 subjects in year 9, GCSE subjects in year 10, A-level subjects in year 12, or undergraduate degree subjects in year 13.

The website will be based on real people, real careers and real research, and will be organised by school subject. Students will be able to log on and discover a wealth of potential career and research options covering all walks of life, all organised by the most relevant subject to the career, and based on real people, who made real decisions.

Filling out the questionnaire takes jut 5 minutes of time, and will influence the decisions that thousands of students make, help others to avoid common pitfalls / mistakes, and help others to appreciate school subjects that are perhaps commonly overlooked (or even not part of the curriculum!)

To fill out the questionnaire, see https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/GKDQDV8
Questions? Suggestions? Email steve@streetresearch.co.uk

Background
When I was at school, nobody ever spoke to me about what jobs different subjects can lead to. This was especially the case in science and engineering, where a lot of jobs are in research, yet nobody ever tells you what research is! I want to change this.

The first time I ever spoke to somebody who was actually a scientist was when I was looking around universities in year 12, which was in my opinion far too late! I want to change this too.

I think it would be useful for young people to be able to talk to real scientists, engineers, and people from other careers, and find out the what they work on, and what their jobs are like. This is especially important in subjects like chemistry, where what you learn at school is very different to what you can do in research, and in school it might not seem as exciting/useful or relevant to life as it actually is!

I think a lot of people who would make great scientists choose to not study science further at school because they don’t know where it can take them.
THIS I want to change. But I need your help!

Who we would especially like to hear from
I want to hear from everyone. This website will only be as good as the database that it is built on, and a breadth of subjects will only be present if people from a variety of walks of life take the time to fill out their details.

I would especially like to hear from anyone who has an interesting job, an interesting project or area of research, or anyone who has started their own company. I would like to hear from a variety people from 'commonly considered' careers such as medicine, law, accountancy, teaching, police, fire service, etc... as well as many careers that might be similar, but commonly overlooked, such as scientific research, patent law, etc!

So basically we want to hear from everyone... This is your chance to 'represent' your subject area and career to students, and be part of something exciting!

CURRENT PROGRESS
The survey is live, waiting to be filled out by a broad range of recipients, and the website is currently under construction. Watch this space for more details!

To fill out the questionnaire, see https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/GKDQDV8