A change of direction

Having been a medicinal chemist for about 40 years I have come to the end of that particular road and having a change of direction bringing to a close RodPorterConsultancy. For many years I have dabbled with paint and sticks of pastel as a hobby and so I am now spending more time working on my artistic skills – I am starting from a low baseline here. I thought it might be fun to share some of my efforts. Most of my work uses pastel – essentially solid lumps of pure pigment mixed with small amounts of binder to hold everything together. Most of the pastels I use are commercial (Unison and Rembrandt being preferred brands), however, I do have a number of home made pastels as well – I may get round to writing about how I make these sometime in the future. While the majority of my work is in pastel – a dry medium – I am trying hard to develop watercolour painting as well – so far without much success but if at first etc.

Every so often I will post a picture not because it will be any good but because it was enjoyable to create or reminds me of places I have visited. Most of these pictures are done form photographs – I am still in the early stages of learning to modify pictures to heighten impact. However, I am starting to do more plein air/open air painting – which brings a whole new set of challenges perhaps more on that elsewhere

RodPorterConsultancy

Rod Porter Consultancy worked with charitable, academic and biotech organisations to help problem solving in their drug discovery research. Set-up in 2009 and (more or less) closed 2022, the company offered:

  • Medicinal chemistry consultancy from hit id to candidate selection
  • Particular expertise in the medicinal chemistry of CNS drug discovery
  • Screening hit analysis and follow-up
  • Input into lead optimisation, programme SAR analysis and strategy.
  • A focus on solving ADMET/PK problems
  • Independent, expert reviews of active programmes and projects
  • Review of therapeutic areas and new target opportunities
  • Review and unbiased critique of research proposals
  • Refereeing of research proposals
  • Third party due diligence

Clients included academic groups, the Wellcome Trust and SME’s covering the range from virtual to medium sized organisations and supporting venture capital funding activities.