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Steve Toms
Dr Steven Toms, from the UK, is a chemical 'Jack of all Trades' who revels in the mix of research and commercial work he gets to conduct at IRL.
Steve Toms
Steve came to the Carbohydrate Chemistry group from a post-doc with Prof Steve Davies at Oxford University. Before that he had completed a post-doc at Arizona State University in the US.
“One of the main reasons I went to Oxford was to help me decide if I wanted to pursue a career in academia or in industry. In the end I chose industry, but as it’s turned out, IRL has been a really happy medium between the two, because we do both research and commercial work here”, he said.
“I see myself as a chemical ‘Jack of all Trades’. I’ve worked with peptides, organometallics, natural products and now carbohydrates, which is a very broad range. It’s been useful to have knowledge across lots of different areas because that’s given me varied opportunities for projects and I like variety. It also makes me really adaptable to lots of different situations.
Steve met his partner Rachel while they were studying for their PhDs at Newcastle University. Rachel now works in GlycoSyn, IRL's pharmaceutical development and scale-up arm. “We both applied for different jobs here at the same time and fortunately we both got them. We are really comfortable working together and saw it as a great opportunity to come and work in New Zealand. We really enjoy it, though of course we miss our friends and family at home in the UK.
“We had a great welcome when we arrived. At the Friday night drinks, people brought their families in and there were little kids running around, so it just felt like a big family. Three years on, there are even more people our age so it’s been an instant social life for us.
One of Steve's commercial projects was making a dendrimer compound with pharmaceutical activity for a client. It began with just a five week contract but was extended and has now been going for six months.
"The client has been very happy with our work. We have supplied them with several small batches, but now they need more and are looking at larger-scale manufacture at GlycoSyn. I will follow the project through and am looking forward to working with the GlycoSyn team, as they are really experienced in scale-up."