The Magolan Laboratory is a research team at McMaster University in Canada. Our expertise is in the fields of organic synthesis and medicinal chemistry. Our research space is the Boris Family Medicinal Chemistry Laboratory.
About our Research Program:
We pursue research projects in the fields of 1) drug discovery and 2) synthetic methodology development. We partner with many other labs in interdisciplinary efforts to discover new medicines that meet critical needs in human health. With our colleagues in the Michael G. Degroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research (IIDR), we work on developing next-generation antibiotic therapies to combat emerging antimicrobial resistance.
Are you an aspiring grad student with a lot of undergraduate organic synthesis experience and good grades, or a postdoctoral applicant with an exceptional record of organic synthesis accomplishments? If so, then perhaps our lab should be your lab.
Our home, McMaster University,
is located in the city of Hamilton,
in Ontario, Canada
About our Reserach Funding
Our research is enabled by financial support from many sources.
We thank them for their generosity and support.
How research in our lab is funded:
1. Competitive Research Grants
2. Philanthropic Donations
3. Institutional Support
4. Sponsored Research Contracts with Commercial Entities
1. Competitive Research Grants
Most of our research expenses are funded by fixed-term project or infrastructure grants awarded to us by organizations that support academic research. We often partner with other labs to apply for awards that support collaborative projects. Graduate students, undergraduate students, and postdoctoral fellows also often apply for and receive their own salary support via training grants that enable them to learn as "trainees" by doing research in our lab. Organizations that have supported us in these ways are listed below:
At McMaster (2017-today)
Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)
Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR)
Ontario Research Fund (ORF)
Canadian Foundation for Innovation (CFI)
Canadian Glycomics Network (GlycoNet)
The Government of Ontario
David Braley Centre for Antibiotic Discovery (DBADC)
Michael G. DeGroote Centre for Medicinal Cannabis Research (CMCR)
Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research (IIDR)
At the University of Idaho (2010-2017)
National Science Foundation (NSF)
M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust
2. Philanthropic Donations
Dr. Magolan holds the Boris Family Chair of Drug Discovery which signifies that part of his salary comes from an endowment donated to McMaster University by the Marta and Owen Boris Foundation which is a Canadian Charity. Through their Foundation, the Boris Family has been remarkably generous in its support of biomedical research and education at McMaster. Funds from this Foundation were also used for the renovation project that yielded our new synthetic chemistry laboratory in 2019. Our new laboratory is known as the "Boris Family Medicinal Chemistry Laboratory."
3. Institutional Support
McMaster University and its Faculty of Health Sciences provided "start-up" funding that enabled the initial establishment and early growth of our lab in 2017.
Similarly, in 2010 the University of Idaho provided start-up support to establish the Magolan Lab in Idaho, which was our home from 2010 to 2017.
4. Sponsored Research Contracts with Commercial Entities
McMaster University is involved in much entrepreneurship that aims to move creative scientific discoveries out of academic literature and into "real world" applications. This is especially true for biomedical and health care innovations. Sponsored Research Contracts occur when companies partner with McMaster to fund research projects that are done by our scientists. McMaster has mechanisms in place to closely oversee such projects to ensure that potential conflicts of interest are mitigated such that academic freedom and research integrity is not compromised.
The Magolan Lab is engaged in a Sponsored Research Contract with Naturally Synthetic Inc. (NatSyn), which has partnered with Peregrine Precision Systems, on a project that aims to use innovative chemical synthesis technologies to manufacture natural molecules that occur in plants but are too rare to isolate and purify from plants in bulk quantities in a cost-effective way. Many such molecules, including some rare non-psychoactive cannabinoid molecules, have shown in pre-clinical studies (cell-based and animal studies) the potential for biomedical use, but more evidence is needed. Making these compounds available in bulk and in high purity using chemical synthesis can enable more biological testing (of molecules that are both "synthetic" and "natural" at the same time) with the goal of developing these molecules into approved medicines and/or nutraceuticals that benefit human health.
