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Dr Derek MacMillan

Summary
  Derek Macmillan is Reader in Organic Chemistry. His group is multidisciplinary and currently consists of 1 postdoc, 3 PhD students and 2 MRes students.  He was worked at UCL since 2005 (2005-11: Royal Society University Research Fellow; 2011-present: Reader). Before this, he was a postdoctoral research associate at UC Berkeley, working with Professor Carolyn Bertozzi.  
Summary of research group
 

Our group is engaged in the development of new chemical and biological methods for the semi-synthesis of modified proteins. Protein synthesis and semi synthesis will be important in unravelling the mechanisms of action of processes involving post-translationally modified (glycosylated, phosphorylated, methylated etc..) proteins. This endeavour involves synthetic organic chemistry, molecular biology, protein expression and protein engineering. Other projects include glycosyltransferase engineering, antimicrobial peptide synthesis, and synthesis and utility of transition metal complexes.  More information can be found on our research pages: http://dmacmillan2.wixsite.com/dmacmillan
Research highlights
   
Research Facilities
 

• Mass Spectrometry

• NMR

• Chemical Biology
Awards
 

• Royal Society URF, Royal Society, 2003 

• Thieme Journal Award, 2010
Memberships
  • Editorial Advisory Board: Journal of Peptide Science 
Research interests
 

• Peptide Synthesis

• Carbohydrate Chemistry

• Chemical Ligation

• Protein Engineering

• Therapeutic peptides, proteins, and glycoproteins
Teaching
 
  • 4th Year UG - Advanced Carbohydrate Chemistry.
  • 4th Year UG - Structural Methods: Mass Spectrometry.
  • 3rd Year UG - Practical Organic Lab Organiser (multi-step organic synthesis)
  • 2nd Year UG- Chemistry of Biologically important molecules: Peptides and Proteins 
Dr Derek MacMillan


Dr Derek MacMillan

Reader

Organic Chemistry Section

Room 329, 3rd Floor, Christopher Ingold Building

Tel: 020 7679 4684

Email: d.macmillan@ucl.ac.uk

All publications

Highlighted publications

  • Kang, J.; Macmillan D. Protein thioester synthesis via an N→S acyl shift. Org. Biomol. Chem. 2010, 8, 1993-2002.
  • Virdee, S.; Macmillan, D.; Waksman, G. Semisynthetic Src SH2 Domains Demonstrate Altered Phosphopeptide Specifity by Incorporation of Unnatural Amino Acids. Chem. Biol. 2010, 17, 274-284.
  • Kang, J.; Reynolds, N.L.; Tyrrell, C.; Dorin, J.R.; and Macmillan, D. Peptide thioester synthesis through N-S acyl-transfer: Application to the synthesis of a β-Defensin. Org. Biomol. Chem. 2009, 7, 4918-4923.
  • Hirano, K.; Macmillan, D.; Tezuka, K.; Tsuji, T.; Kajihara, Y. Design and synthesis of a homogeneous erythropoietin analogue having two human complex type sialyloligosaccharides by combined use of chemical and bacterial protein expression methods.Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2009, 48, 9557-9560.
  • Kang, J.; Richardson, J.P.; Macmillan, D. 3-Mercaptopropionic acid-mediated synthesis of peptide and protein thioesters, Chem. Commun. 2009 (4), 407-409.