Dr Mike Leach
Job title
Reader in Pharmacology and Drug Development
Department
Life & Sports Sciences
Qualifications
M.I.Biol, PhD, Fellow Royal Society of Medicine
Dr Mike Leach gained his PhD at the Institute of Neurology, The National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, Queens Square, London. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine and has a long pedigree in the pharmaceutical industry.
He was a former section head at Wellcome Research (now part of GlaxoSmithKline) and much of his career in the pharmaceutical industry centred around searching for treatments for epilepsy such as Lamotrigine; Lamictal™, used in the treatment of both adult and paediatric forms of epilepsy, brain damage after a stroke and more recently, multiple sclerosis (MS). Dr Leach is a co-inventor of Pleneva (BGC20-0134; BTG International) now in Phase II clinical trials for MS.
He is also a co-founder of one of the university’s spin out companies – CenTRion Therapeutics – and a member of the School of Science Drug Discovery cluster group.
Dr Leach is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine; Member of Clinical Neuroscience and Pharmaceutical Medicine and Lipid sections; Journal Referee: Epilepsy Research; Epilepsia; Brain Research; Neuropharmacology; Stroke; Psychopharmacology; and retained contributor to reference text : Antiepileptic Drugs.
Responsibilities within the university
Course Leader
Neuropharmacology
Physiology and Pharmacology
Pharmaceutics
Course participation
Natural Products
API and Drug Development
Medicinal Chemistry and Therapeutics – Postgraduate
Selected publications
Leach, M. et al. (2010) An absolute structure template for a unique voltage-gated sodium channel binding site. Medicinal Chemistry communications, 1, pp. 45–49.
Leach, M. et al. (2009) Central nervous system drugs: low temperature x-ray structures of (I) the base of 5-(2,3-Dichlorophenyl)-2,4-diamino-6-fluoromethyl-pyrimidine (4030W92) and (ii) 5-(2,6-Dichlorophenyl)-1-H-2,4-diamino-6-methyl-pyrimidine methanesulphonic acid salt (227C89). J.Chem.Crystallogr., 39, pp. 36–41.
Leach, M. et al. (2008) Polyunsaturated fatty acids in the pathogenesis and treatment of multiple sclerosis patients. PNS. 67.OCA E21
Leach, M. et al. (2008) Borage oil supplementation in relation to MCP-1 expression in healthy subjects. PNS. 67.OCA.E44
Research
Dr Leach is a member of the Drug Discovery and Cell Biology Research Cluster.
