Debra Wallace - Pauline Chiu - Princess Chulabhorn - Ada Yonath

Dr Debra Wallace was born and educated in the UK, obtaining both her undergraduate degree and PhD at Cambridge University. Her PhD, under the supervision of Professor Ian Paterson involved the discovery of a new boron mediated aldol reaction and its application to a range of synthetic applications. Debra then moved to the University of British Columbia, Canada for postdoctoral studies with Professor Ed Piers working on copper mediated cyclisation and, in collaboration with Dr Ray
Anderson's group in the Oceanography department the total synthesis of some marine natural products. On completion of her postdoctoral work
Debra returned to Cambridge and took up a position as a Junior Research Fellow at Churchill College, undertaking further research work in the
chemical laboratories.

Debra joined the Process Research group at Merck in the UK in 1998, and has been with Merck for 8 years, during which time she participated in a
three year placement to the US. Her job at Merck entails leading a team of scientists designing scaleable, safe and efficient syntheses of
potential drug compounds. She is interested in all aspects of modern synthetic chemistry, but has a particular interest in ring-closing metathesis reactions of polyalkenes, with a range of papers addressing selectivity issues.

While not at work Debra has a number of sporting interests including running, golf, skiing, rock and mountain climbing and has travelled to a number of countries to pursue this latter interest.

In Debra's talk today she provides a case study addressing the issues facing Process Chemists at different stages when developing a gram scale synthesis into a potential manufacturing process, and attempts to capture the sense of excitement and achievement that we all share when pushing the boundaries of current state of the art chemistry.