DrRavi Singh, FHEA

Dr Ravi Singh is a senior teaching fellow (lecturer) specializing in synthetic chemistry, medicinal chemistry, and drug discovery. He is an academic tutor at both first and second year, alongside teaching responsibilities in workshops and laboratories across the undergraduate chemistry degree programmes. He also supervises BSc projects at third year. A full list of teaching responsibilities can be found on the 'Teaching' tab. Dr Singh also leads on departmental outreach activities throughout the year. 

Prior to this, he held a position as research associate/lab manager at the Molecular Sciences Research Hub (White City campus) in the group of Professor Ed Tate. In addition, he was the course manager for the MRes in Drug Discovery and Development course which also involved directly supervising several students on research projects, and teaching/assessing at postgraduate and undergraduate levels.

Dr Singh obtained his degree in Medicinal Chemistry (MChem) from the University of Leeds, with his MChem research project focusing on disrupting protein-protein interactions implicated in cancer (using a combination of small molecules and constrained peptides). He then remained at the University of Leeds to complete an interdisciplinary PhD with the Department of Chemistry, Leeds Institute of Cardiology and Metabolic Medicine (LICAMM), and The Astbury Centre for Structural and Molecular Biology. This research project aimed to identify and optimize novel small molecules against a confidential target implicated in thrombosis by combining in silico modelling, organic synthesis, and biochemical testing. Dr Singh then initiated an NMR fragment screening process to generate hits for a new series against the biological target of interest [patent in progress].

During his PhD, he designed and developed online tools which were used in undergraduate lectures and then published in the Journal of Chemical Education. He also blended his PhD research with the undergraduate teaching laboratories by creating a series of workshops. This allowed students to apply their theoretical knowledge in a ‘real world’ setting in a classroom-based activity, which resulted in another publication and was then awarded the RSC Horizon Prize in Education. Dr Singh was awarded his Associate Fellowship of the Advance HE in August 2018 and was invited to speak at the ViCEPhEC conference in 2018 at the University of Sheffield. In 2022, he was awarded his Fellowship from Advance HE.

Research interests: organic synthesis, medicinal chemistry, computational modelling, protein-ligand NMR, fragment-based drug discovery, chemical biology.