chemistry

Matthew Todd (chemist)

Matthew Todd (chemist) is a chemistry topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Matthew Todd (chemist) rather than just read about it. In short: Matthew Houghton Todd (born 13 January 1973) is a British chemist and the Professor and Chair of Drug Discovery of the School of Pharmacy at University College London. He is the founder of Open Source Malaria (OSM) and his research focuses on drug discovery and development for this disease.

Key takeaways

Matthew Todd (chemist) belongs to chemistry; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Matthew Todd (chemist) to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Matthew Todd (chemist) from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Matthew Houghton Todd (born 13 January 1973) is a British chemist and the Professor and Chair of Drug Discovery of the School of Pharmacy at University College London. He is the founder of Open Source Malaria (OSM) and his research focuses on drug discovery and development for this disease. Recently, he has expanded to other areas, particularly neglected diseases such as tuberculosis and mycetoma in the Open Source Tuberculosis (OSTB) and Open Source Mycetoma (MycetOS) project, through a collaboration with the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative and Erasmus MC. In addition, he has some research activity in catalysis and methodology.

Education Todd received an MA in Natural Sciences from the University of Cambridge in 1995. He obtained his PhD in Organic Chemistry at the same institution in 1999, working with Chris Abell on encoding and linker strategies for combinatorial chemistry. Todd was a Wellcome Trust Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley from 1999 to 2000, working with Paul A. Bartlett on synthesis of amino acid-derived heterocycles by Lewis acid catalysis and radical cyclisations from peptide acetals.

Career and research From 2000 to 2001, he was a College Fellow and Lecturer at New Hall, Cambridge (now Murray Edwards College, Cambridge). He began his independent research career in 2001 at Queen Mary University of London. In 2005, he relocated to Australia where he was a lecturer, senior lecturer, then associate professor at the School of Chemistry, University of Sydney. In 2018, he returned to the United Kingdom to take the role of professor and Chair of Drug Discovery at UCL School of Pharmacy. In response to the price hike of HIV/AIDS drug, pyrimethamine (Daraprim), by Turing Pharmaceuticals, Todd and the Open Source Malaria team led a small team of high school students from Sydney Grammar School to synthesise the drug. The students produced 3.7 grams of pyrimethamine for US$20, which would be worth between US$35,000 and US$110,000 in the United States based on hiked prices. This received significant media attention and was featured on ABC, BBC, CNN, The Guardian, and Time. Todd has been a vocal proponent of open science and open research. In 2011, he proposed Six Laws of Open Research to guide present and future open research projects including OSM and MycetOS:

All data are open and all ideas are shared. Anyone can take part at any level of the project. There will be no patents. Suggestions are the best form of criticism. Public discussion is much more valuable than private email. The project is bigger than, and is not owned by, any given lab. The aim is to find a good drug for malaria, by whatever means, as quickly as possible. Todd is on the Editorial boards of Chemistry Central Journal, ChemistryOpen, PLOS One, Scientific Reports, and Scientific Data.

Honours and awards 2011 – NSW Premier's Prize for Science & Engineering (Emerging Research) 2012 – Wellcome Trust/Google/PLOS Accelerating Science Award 2014 – Blue Obelisk Award 2017 – Medicine Maker Power List 2018 – Medicine Maker Power List 2019 – Medicine Maker Power List 2020 – Medicine Maker Power List 2021 – Medicine Maker Power List

See also Open access Open collaboration Open innovation Open science data Open Source Drug Discovery Open-source model

References

External links

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Matthew Todd (chemist)

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Matthew Todd (chemist) claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In chemistry, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Matthew Todd (chemist) before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Matthew Todd (chemist) ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Matthew Todd (chemist)

In research: Matthew Todd (chemist) appears in chemistry research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Matthew Todd (chemist) in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Matthew Todd (chemist) is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1973 births, Academics of University College London, Alumni of Queens' College, Cambridge, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Matthew Todd (chemist) outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Matthew Todd (chemist) in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Matthew Todd (chemist) means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Matthew Todd (chemist) out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Matthew Todd (chemist) in simple terms?

Why does Matthew Todd (chemist) matter?

Because it connects several chemistry ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Matthew Todd (chemist)?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Matthew Todd (chemist).