Sophie Thomas

Sophie is a Lecturer in Drug Delivery and Pharmaceutics in the School of Chemistry, Pharmacy and Pharmacology (Sept 2026). During her PhD and post-doctoral positions, Sophie gained extensive experience in bioinorganic chemistry with a focus on small metal compounds and metal nanoparticles for therapeutic applications. 

Sophie graduated with a MChem degree from Cardiff University in 2017 with her fourth-year project under the supervision of Prof. Angela Casini investigating the cytotoxicity and biological properties of a library of gold compounds, which is where her love for research began. 

Subsequently, Sophie completed an MRes degree (2018) as part of the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in Catalysis between Cardiff, Bristol and Bath. This involved lectures in homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis, as well as chemical engineering. She then completed two research sabbaticals, one at the University of Bath under the supervision of Dr. Salvador Eslava looking at PrFeO₃ photocathodes for solar water splitting, and the second at Cardiff University with Prof. Angela Casini and Prof. Nikolaos Dimitratos exploring ways to combine supramolecular coordination complexes with nanoparticles.

Sophie obtained her PhD in Chemistry at Cardiff University (2021) under the supervision of Prof. Angela Casini, combining the experience she had from her previous projects. Her PhD thesis involved investigating cyclometalated gold compounds to perform bioorthogonal reactions in a biological environment, as well as exploring gold nanoparticles stabilized by N-heterocyclic carbenes (NHCs) for catalysis in cells.

Before the end of her PhD, Sophie was awarded a Technical University of Munich (TUM) Postdoctoral Fellowship which she began in 2022 with Prof. Angela Casini and Prof. Roland Fisher expanding her research in the field of water-soluble NHC-stabilized gold nanoparticles in catalysis and biomedicine. 

In 2024, Sophie then joined the University of Vienna with a FWF (Austrian Science Fund) ESPRIT Fellowship to work with Assoc. Prof. Michael Reithofer as her mentor. In this project, Sophie expanded her research in NHC-stabilized gold nanoparticles, looking further into bimetallic systems and the effect that different carbenes can have on the NP stability.