The Waudby Group

Preprint: An open format for recording sample metadata alongside NMR experiments

Jul 2026

Sample composition is essential for interpreting and reproducing NMR experiments, yet it's rarely recorded systematically at the point of acquisition. Our new preprint, with Tomas Lebl and Nikita Harvey, describes a lightweight, versioned JSON schema for sample metadata — components, buffers, tube/rotor details, personnel and lab references — stored alongside experiment data with no server or database required.

The format is implemented in our NMR Sample Management tools (a TopSpin plugin and a browser-based viewer), and is supported by NOMAD, NMRTools.jl and NMR TITAN. We also map the schema onto the NMR-STAR ontology used by the BMRB, and discuss how bench-level structured metadata can ease data deposition and FAIR compliance. Community input is welcome ahead of a stable 1.0 release. Read the preprint here.

Group members present at the 2026 CCPN Conference

Jun 2026

A great showing from the group at this year's CCPN Conference! Sophia Hazlett gave an invited talk, 'Characterisation of small molecule binding using ¹⁹F NMR R₁ρ relaxation dispersion', while Kleopatra, Danni and Chris all presented posters on their latest work.

Find out more about our group members.

Kleopatra presents her PhD project in Seville

17 Feb 2026

Congratulations to PhD student Kleopatra for presenting her work at the University of Seville! Kleo gave a talk on her PhD project, 'Order and disorder in the C-terminal domain of calreticulin', showcasing her research into the structural and dynamic properties of this important ER chaperone.

Preprint: Kinetic NMR screening using ¹⁹F relaxation dispersion

24 Sep 2025

Congratulations to PhD student Sophia Hazlett on her first manuscript, now available as a preprint on ChemRxiv! This work demonstrates how kinetic ¹⁹F NMR methods, commonly used for studying protein dynamics, can accelerate the analysis and screening of small molecule interactions in fragment mixtures.

The lab's first home-grown manuscript describes a new conceptual approach to NMR fragment screening. Easy-to-use software implementing these methods is available as part of our NMRAnalysis.jl package. Read the preprint here.

Congratulations to Chris and Stephen!

26 Jul 2025

We are delighted to celebrate the marriage of our group leader Chris to his partner Stephen! Group members and colleagues from UCL took a break from the lab to join in the celebrations on a day filled with love, music, joy, and ceilidh dancing.

Congratulations to the happy couple from all of us in the Waudby Group!

Gold LEAF award for the second year running!

Jun 2025

We're thrilled to announce that the Waudby Group has been awarded a Gold LEAF award for the second consecutive year! LEAF (Laboratory Efficiency Assessment Framework) is a standard developed at UCL for improving laboratory sustainability and efficiency.

Laboratory research is essential but also extremely resource-intensive, responsible for around 2% of global plastic waste and using 3-10 times more energy per square meter than typical offices. We encourage other labs to join the LEAF programme and help create more sustainable research environments. Learn more about our sustainability initiatives.

UCL School of Pharmacy hosts national NMR meetings

16-17 Jun 2025

The UCL School of Pharmacy hosted the Royal Society of Chemistry NMR Discussion Group's Magnetic Resonance Managers' Meeting and Postgraduate Meeting, bringing together approximately 90 attendees from across the UK magnetic resonance community. The meetings featured keynote lectures from Dr Miguel Mompeán and Professor Sasi Conte, alongside eleven student talks and many poster and flash presentations demonstrating the high calibre of early career researchers in the field.

It was incredibly rewarding to see the next generation of NMR spectroscopists here learning and building their community. These meetings demonstrate the continuing importance of magnetic resonance techniques across fields from carbon capture and energetic materials to drug discovery and development.

PhD students present at NMR meeting in Paris

26-28 May 2025

PhD students Kleopatra Savvidou and Sophia Hazlett attended the XIVth 'NMR: a tool for biology' meeting at the Pasteur Institute in Paris. Both students presented posters describing their research developing new NMR methods for fragment screening, and on structural biology of calreticulin, a component of the ER glycan quality control pathway.

It was a great opportunity for our students to share their work with the international NMR community and learn about the latest developments in biological NMR spectroscopy. Find out more about our group members.

AAT polymer study published in Science Advances

7 May 2025

Congratulations to first author Sarah Lowen on the publication of her study "High-resolution characterization of ex vivo AAT polymers by solution-state NMR spectroscopy" in Science Advances! The product of a close collaboration between the Waudby group and the Lomas group (UCL Medicine), this remarkable work demonstrates the power of solution-state NMR to study large disease-associated polymers at natural abundance derived from patient liver explants.

Read the full paper here.

RSC Chemical Biology and Bio-Organic Group Forum

Feb 2025

We are proud that final year MPharm student Meshezabeel Narciso presented her undergraduate research project 'Development of a 19F NMR fragment screening platform at UCL' alongside other PhD students from the group and department. "Presenting my research project at the CBBG forum was an incredible opportunity and a truly rewarding experience, especially as an undergraduate. It was an honour to be surrounded by outstanding researchers and seeing exciting research developments from across the country."

Christmas ice skating at Somerset House

16 Dec 2024

The group enjoyed a festive outing to Somerset House for some Christmas ice skating! Despite a few wobbles and tumbles, everyone had a wonderful time gliding (or carefully shuffling) around the beautiful courtyard.

Afterwards, we warmed up with hot chocolate and reflected on a great year together. Find out more about our group members here.

Congratulations Lucy!

22 Nov 2023

Many congratulations to MPharm graduate Lucy Walker-Fearns – one of the lab's very first members – who was awarded the W C Peck Prize for best peformance in an undergraduate chemistry research project at the School of Pharmacy awards ceremony last night.

Find out more about our other fabulous group members here.

Dynamic and Assembly Characteristics of a Deep‐Cavity Basket

30 Oct 2023

Our latest paper, in collaboration with the Bajdic group, reports the characterisation of a supramolecular host with a deep cavity interacting with the drug mitoxanthrone, using a combination of NMR lineshape analysis and CEST to understand the internal dynamics, and the competition between self-recognition (dimerisation) and guest binding.

Check out our full publication list or go straight to the article.