Our Team
of enthusiastic scientists
Summer 2023
Lead Investigator
Dr. Jakob Magolan
Professor, Dept. of Biochemistry and Biomedical Sciences
Boris Family Chair of Drug Discovery
BSc (2002) Queen's University, Canada (R. Lemieux)
PhD (2007) Western University, Canada (M. Kerr)
Postdoc (2007-2010) Griffith University, Australia (M. Coster)
2010 - 2017, Assistant Professor, University of Idaho
2017 - 2023, Associate Professor, McMaster University
2023 - present, Professor, McMaster University
Research Associates
Dr. Jarrod Johnson
Research Associate
BSc & PhD: University of Waterloo (G. Dimitrienko)
Postdoctoral research: Notre Dame (S. Mobashery); McMaster (G. Wright)
Research Focus: Dr. Johnson contributes to the management of all research in our lab with an emphasis on antimicrobial medicinal chemistry projects.
Dr. Mathew Piotrowski
Research Associate
BSc & PhD: Western University, Canada (M. Kerr)
Postdoctoral research: McMaster University (J. Magolan)
Research focus: Dr. Pitrowski develops scalable syntheses of phenolic natural products of biomedical interest. His research is sponsored by a partnership between our lab and Naturally Synthetic Inc.
Dr. Lauren Irwin
Research Associate
BSc & PhD: Western University, Canada (M. Kerr)
Research focus: Dr. Irwin works on the syntheses of phenolic natural products of biomedical interest. Her research is sponsored by a partnership between our lab and Naturally Synthetic Inc.
Graduate Students - PhD Candidates
Nicole Ritchie
PhD Candidate, Chemistry
BSc: University of Waterloo (G. Murphy)
Research: antimicrobial medicinal chemistry​
Lara Lima
PhD Candidate, Chemical Biology
BSc: Federal University of Ceara, Brazil
Research: antimicrobial medicinal chemistry; development of chemical tools to enable fast point-of-care diagnosis of antibiotic drug resistance.
Princeton Luong
PhD Candidate, Chemical Biology
BSc: University of Waterloo (with Prof. Michael Chong)
Research: anti-cancer medicinal chemistry
Gary Wang​
MS Candidate, Chemical Biology
BSc: McMaster University (in our lab)
Research: anti-cancer medicinal chemistry & natural products synthesis
Graduate Students - MSc Candidates
Michael Krzysko
MS Candidate, Chemical Biology
BSc: University of Waterloo
Research: organosulfur synthetic methods
Katie Shepherd
MS Candidate, Chemical Biology
BSc: University of Guelph (with Prof. Adrian Schwan)
Research: anti-cancer medicinal chemistry
Undergraduate Students
Tyler Carmona
Undergraduate Student, Biochemistry and Biomedical Sciences
Amanda Gollinger
Undergraduate Student, Chemical Biology
Cassidy West
Undergraduate Student, Integrated Sciences
Erica Cho
Undergraduate Student, Chemical Biology
John Tran
Undergraduate Student, Chemical Biology
Ethan Schmidt
Undergraduate Student, Integrated Sciences
