Dr Tom A K Prescott

I'm a biochemist working on biologically active secondary metabolites from plants and fungi, focussing on clinical trials of plant medicines and applications of antimicrobial compounds for agriculture.

At Kew I isolate plant and fungal metabolites and test them on human cells, bacteria, fungi, and arrays of yeast gene deletion strains to understand their biological effects and investigate their mechanisms of action. We are also currently working with machine learning tools to help predict of mechanism of action.

In Papua New Guinea I work with communities living in remote areas that lack access to basic medicines to research their traditional medicines. The aim is to identify a traditional plant medicine that can be used as a zero-cost and highly accessible first-line treatment for tropical ulcers. We recently completed a clinical trial of one such plant medicine revealing promising results and are now planning further clinical trials.

• PhD, Univ. Edinburgh, 2005
• BSc (Hons), Univ. Edinburgh, 1999