of enthusiastic scientists
Our Team
September 2022
Photo by Blake Dillon
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
Patrick Darveau
PhD Candidate, Chemical Biology
BSc: University of Laval
MSc: University of Laval
Research: antimicrobial medicinal chemistry; methodologies for the synthesis of phenolic natural products
Meghan Fragis
PhD Candidate, Chemical Biology
BSc: Unviersity of Guelph (W. Tam)
Research: organosulfur synthetic methods; antimicrobial medicinal chemistry
Matthew Squazzin
PhD Candidate, Biochemistry
BSc: University of Waterloo (R. Lemieux)
Research: cardiovascular medicinal chemistry; organosulfur synthetic methods
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.
Elizabeth Lach
MS Candidate, Chemical Biology
BSc: McMaster University (with Prof. Anthony Rullo)
Research: medicinal chemistry and synthetic methods
Princeton Luong
PhD Candidate, Chemical Biology
BSc: University of Waterloo (with Prof. Michael Chong)
Research: anti-cancer medicinal chemistry
Graduate Students - MS Candidates
Ellie Wong
MS Candidate, Chemical Biology
BSc: University of Waterloo (with Prof. Graham Murphy)
Research: anti-cancer medicinal chemistry
Kaitlyn Breault
MS Candidate, Chemical Biology
BSc: University of Windsor (with Prof. John Trant)
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
Undergraduate Students
Eric Pettipiece
Undergraduate Student, Integrated Sciences
Rowan Ives
Undergraduate Student, Health Sciences
Marissa MacIver
Undergraduate Student, Chemistry
Philip Samokhin
Undergraduate Student, Chemical Biology
Keaton Peterson
Undergraduate Student, Biochemistry
Amy Gingrich
Undergraduate Student, Chemical Biology
Tyler Carmona
Undergraduate Student, Biochemistry
Simon Li
Undergraduate Student, Chemical Biology
Roxann Forget
Undergraduate Student, Biomedical Discovery and Commercialization
