Biography:Alice Motion

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Short description: British chemist and science communicator (born 1984)


Alice Motion
Alice Motion (cropped).jpg
Motion in October 2022
Born
Alice Elizabeth Williamson

(1984-10-28) 28 October 1984 (age 39)
NationalityBritish
Alma mater
Scientific career
Fields
InstitutionsUniversity of Sydney
Doctoral advisorMatthew J. Gaunt
Other academic advisors
Websitewww.alicemotion.com

Alice Elizabeth Motion (born Alice Williamson,[1] 28 October 1984) is a British chemist, science communicator, and associate professor at the School of Chemistry, University of Sydney.[2] She is the founder of the Breaking Good project which encourages high school and undergraduate students to take part in research that can benefit human health.[3] In 2018, the Breaking Good project was a finalist on the Google.org Impact Challenge.[4]

Education

Motion received her MChem from the University of Leeds in 2007 where she worked with Philip Kocienski on the synthesis of an N-acetylcolchinol-combretastatin hybrid. She moved to the University of Cambridge where she obtained her PhD in 2012 while working with Matthew J. Gaunt on strategies for asymmetric arylation.[5]

Career

In 2012, Motion moved to the University of Sydney in Australia to work with Matthew H. Todd on the Open Source Malaria project as Postdoctoral Research Fellow.[6] In 2014, she became a Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow at the same institution until her promotion to Lecturer in Chemical Education and Outreach at the same institution in 2017.

Pyrimethamine is a pharmaceutical medicine used in combination with leucovorin to treat toxoplasmosis and cystoisosporiasis and in combination with dapsone to prevent Pneumocystis jiroveci pneumonia in HIV/AIDS patients.[7][8] In 2015, Turing Pharmaceuticals drastically increased the price of pyrimethamine, which it markets as Daraprim, from about US$13.50 to $750 per tablet.[9][10] In response, Motion, along with her academic advisor, Matthew H. Todd, and the Open Source Malaria team led a small team of high school students from Sydney Grammar School to synthesise the drug.[11][12] The team produced 3.7 grams of pyrimethamine for under US$20, which would be worth between $US35,000 and $US110,000 in the United States according to Turing Pharmaceuticals's pricing.[13] This received significant media attention and was featured in The Guardian [12] and Time (magazine) magazine,[14] and on ABC News (Australia),[13] the BBC,[15] and CNN.[16]

Motion, like her former research advisor, is a proponent of open science.[17][18][19][20][21] She believes that open science and research provides transparency of data and results that prevent unnecessary duplication.[22]

In December 2022 Motion was appointed interim director of Sydney Nano.[23]

Honours and awards

  • 2015 – ABC RN and UNSW Top 5 Under 40[24]
  • 2017 and 2018 – RACI Nyholm Lectureship: "Mother Nature's Molecules – the good, the bad and the ugly"[25]
  • 2020 – Celestino Eureka Prize for Promoting Understanding of Science[26]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Hobbs, Bernie (22 July 2020). "We need to open science up to everyone" (in en-AU). ABC Radio National. https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/ockhamsrazor/we-need-to-open-science-up-to-everyone-breaking-good-daraprim/12482278. 
  2. ↑ "Dr Alice Motion". The University of Sydney. https://sydney.edu.au/science/people/alice.motion.php. 
  3. ↑ "Breaking Good". https://www.breakinggoodproject.com/. 
  4. ↑ "Google.org Impact Challenge Australia 2018". 2018. https://impactchallenge.withgoogle.com/australia2018. 
  5. ↑ Bigot, Aurélien; Williamson, Alice E.; Gaunt, Matthew J. (2011). "Enantioselective α-Arylation of N-Acyloxazolidinones with Copper(II)-bisoxazoline Catalysts and Diaryliodonium Salts". Journal of the American Chemical Society 133 (35): 13778–13781. doi:10.1021/ja206047h. PMID 21848264. 
  6. ↑ Williamson, Alice E.Expression error: Unrecognized word "etal". (2016). "Open Source Drug Discovery: Highly Potent Antimalarial Compounds Derived from the Tres Cantos Arylpyrroles". ACS Central Science 2 (10): 687–701. doi:10.1021/acscentsci.6b00086. PMID 27800551. 
  7. ↑ "Pyrimethamine". 5 March 2019. https://www.drugs.com/monograph/pyrimethamine.html. 
  8. ↑ Hamilton, Richard J. (2015). Tarascon Pocket Pharmacopoeia 2015 Deluxe Lab-Coat Edition (16th ed.). Jones & Bartlett Learning. p. 54. ISBN 9781284057560. 
  9. ↑ Timmerman, Luke (23 September 2015). "A Timeline of the Turing Pharma Controversy". Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/luketimmerman/2015/09/23/a-timeline-of-the-turing-pharma-controversy/. 
  10. ↑ Pollack, Andrew (24 November 2015). "Turing Refuses to Lower List Price of Toxoplasmosis Drug". The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/25/business/turing-refuses-to-lower-list-price-of-toxoplasmosis-drug.html. 
  11. ↑ Reiner, Vivienne (30 November 2016). "Students make $750 drug cheaply with Open Source Malaria team". The University of Sydney. https://sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2016/11/30/students-make--750-drug-cheaply-with-open-source-malaria-team-.html. 
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 Davey, Melissa (1 December 2016). "Australian students recreate Martin Shkreli price-hike drug in school lab". The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/dec/01/australian-students-recreate-martin-shkreli-price-hike-drug-in-school-lab. 
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 Hunjan, Raveen (30 November 2016). "Daraprim drug's key ingredient recreated by high school students in Sydney for just $20". Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC News). https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-11-30/daraprim-nsw-students-create-drug-martin-shkreli-sold/8078892. 
  14. ↑ Lui, Kevin (2 December 2016). "Watch Martin Shkreli Respond to the School Kids Who Recreated His Drug for $2 a Dose". Time (magazine). http://time.com/4588458/martin-shkreli-response-sydney-students-daraprim/. Retrieved 23 April 2019. 
  15. ↑ Dunlop, Greg (1 December 2016). "Martin Shkreli: Australian boys recreate life-saving drug". BBC News. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-38153254. 
  16. ↑ Roberts, Elizabeth (1 December 2016). "'Pharma Bro' Martin Shkreli meets his match in a group of Australian schoolboys". CNN. https://edition.cnn.com/2016/12/01/health/daraprim-oz/index.html. 
  17. ↑ Williamson, Alice (29 June 2015). "Open science: the future of research?". ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation). http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2015/06/29/4254093.htm. 
  18. ↑ Todd, Matthew H.; Wells, Timothy N. C.; Olliaro, Piero; Willis, Paul; Badiola, Katrina A.; Robins, Michael; Woelfle, Michael; Williamson, Alice E. et al. (2013). "Open source drug discovery – A limited tutorial". Parasitology 141 (1): 148–157. doi:10.1017/S0031182013001121. ISSN 0031-1820. PMID 23985301. 
  19. ↑ Stevens, Katherine (4 October 2016). "Open-source science to enable drug discovery". American Chemical Society. https://axial.acs.org/2016/10/13/malaria-open-source-drug-discovery/. 
  20. ↑ Williamson, Alice (10 June 2014). "International team of scientists open sources search for malaria cure". https://opensource.com/life/14/6/international-team-open-sources-search-malaria-cure. 
  21. ↑ Williamson, Alice; Todd, Matthew (14 September 2016). "Making drug development less secretive could lead to quicker, cheaper therapies". http://theconversation.com/making-drug-development-less-secretive-could-lead-to-quicker-cheaper-therapies-64744. 
  22. ↑ Williamson, Alice (4 October 2017). "Open science – to benefit all" (Presentation to the Royal Institution of Great Britain). Rebroadcast by Paul Barclay (presenter) on Radio National's Big Ideas programme on 31 January 2018. Retrieved 24 April 2019 – via Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
  23. ↑ "Alice Motion appointed interim Sydney Nano Director" (in en-AU). https://www.sydney.edu.au/nano/news/latest-news/2022/12/07/alice-motion-appointed-interim-sydney-nano-director.html. 
  24. ↑ Zukerman, Wendy (7 March 2015). "Top 5 Under 40 winners announced". Radio National. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/scienceshow/top-5-under-40-winners-announced/6282910. 
  25. ↑ "RACI Nyholm Youth Lecture Series". Royal Australian Chemical Institute. 2019. https://www.raci.org.au/branches/nsw-branch/nyholm-youth-lecture-series. 
  26. ↑ "2020 Australian Museum Eureka Prize winners" (in en). http://australian.museum/get-involved/eureka-prizes/2020-eureka-prizes-winners/. 

External links



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