Sevenoaks has been awarded a highly sought-after grant from the Royal Society Partnership to help fund open-source drug research into treatments for Mycetoma. Common in developing countries, this chronic, progressively destructive infectious disease attacks skin, muscle and bone and affects mainly manual workers such as agriculturalists, labourers and herdsmen.
Working with Professor Matthew Todd at UCL, Sevenoaks students will be the first school students in the UK to join a global community in synthesising analogues of the anti-fungal compound Fenarimol as part of the open-source research project into treatments for this badly neglected disease. They will receive training from Professor Matthew Todd and his post-doctoral researchers on a regular basis as they undertake the investigative, open-source, classroom-based research from September 2019 as part of the school’s Service programme.
The project will be run by the Chemistry department and will involve Year 12 pupils.
