I graduated from the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus in 2016 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry and a minor in Economics. Under the tutelage of Prof. Paul Reese, I was afforded the privilege of working as a project student at the undergraduate level for two summers, where I developed both an appreciation and an interest in academic research. This initial exposure was the determining factor which led to my enrollment into the post-graduate programme.

Currently in my fifth year, I have since been investigating the biotransformation of testosterone using immobilized filamentous fungi. For more than half a century, microbial transformations have remained an area of interest due to the facile conversion of substrates to oxygenated analogues. These transformations have proven to be more economically viable when contrasted with the use of isolated enzymes, and have also been considered to be a “greener” alternative to chemical synthesis.

The aim of this study is to assess the potential of generating a wide variety of analogues from steroidal substrates, using a combination of fungal cultures in a single fermentation. This undertaking has shown promising results, in the literature, for generating a library of compound-analogues, and it is hoped that this investigation will allow for more selectivity in targeting compounds which may be of biological interest.