of enthusiastic scientists
Our Team

September 2022
Photo by Blake Dillon
Lead Investigator
Dr. Jakob Magolan
Associate 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, Assist. & Assoc. Prof., University of Idaho
2017 - present, Assoc Prof., 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.
Graduate Students - MS Candidates

Princeton Luong
MS Candidate, Chemical Biology
BSc: University of Waterloo (with Prof. Michael Chong)
Research: anti-cancer medicinal chemistry

Elizabeth Lach
MS Candidate, Chemical Biology
BSc: McMaster University (with Prof. Anthony Rullo)
Research: anti-cancer medicinal chemistry

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
Undergraduate Students

Matthew Bacik
Undergraduate Student, Health Sciences

Eric Pettipiece
Undergraduate Student, Integrated Sciences

Gary Wang
Undergraduate Student, Chemistry


Rowan Ives
Undergraduate Student, Health Sciences

Marissa MacIver
Undergraduate Student, Chemistry
