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What we do

We are driven by the excitement of discovering fundamental mechanisms of catalysis in biology, and the possibilities for exploiting biocatalysis in simpler ways for sustainable chemical synthesis. Our research spans areas of bioinorganic chemistry, catalysis, structural enzymology, chemical biology and industrial biotechnology.

Opportunities

Please do get in touch to hear more about opportunities in the Vincent group. We always welcome applications from qualified students or postdoctoral scientists with scholarships or fellowships to support their research, or candidates seeking to apply for Oxford scholarships or fellowships. As a group we span a broad range of subject expertise: from bio-inorganic or bio-physical chemistry to synthetic organic chemistry to structural and molecular biology. For 2026/7 we will take 3-4 Oxford MChem students. We have vacancies for DPhil or MRes students for 2026 entry.

Congratulations to Jiayu Peng (Adam) who passed his DPhil viva in July 2025, and Sofia Helin who passed hers in September 2025.

We were absolutely delighted that our nitro hydrogentations team, together with HydRegen, were recognised by the 2025 Chemistry Biology Interface Horizon Prize: Rita and John Cornforth Award from the Royal Society of Chemistry!

Congratulations to Tin Pou Lai (Sam) and Maya Landis who passed their DPhil vivas with minor corrections in Feb 2025

Congratulations to Tara Lurshay who passed her DPhil viva with minor corrections in March 2025.

Welcome to Natalia Dyachenko who joined us on W-Biocat project in Feb 2025, and to Rob Schmitz who visited on this project in Feb. from TU Delft

Congratulations to Sofia Helin who won the RSC Catalysis Science and Technology poster prize at GIC-EFCATS 2025 PhD Winter School, with Shreya also attending this meeting.

Congratulations to Charlotte Hancox who passed her DPhil viva with minor corrections in Jan 2025!

We are a friendly, sociable research group, and we really value our diverse membership. We celebrate the mix of cultures represented in the group, and the creative-thinking that comes from a neuro-diverse, gender-balanced and LGBTQ+ -inclusive team. We value innovation and a 'can-do' attitude towards solving challenges in research.

The activation of small molecules in biology is a key research theme in the Vincent group. Chemists have a lot to learn from catalytic processes which occur in microorganisms. We are particularly fascinated by how nature has tuned hydrogenase enzymes to oxidise and produce dihydrogen at earth-abundant iron or nickel-iron catalytic sites, and how nitrogenase catalyses the fixation of dinitrogen to ammonia under mild conditions.

These chemical reactions represent some of the greatest chemical challenges for solving the world's energy problems, and we hope that what we learn from studying the biocatalytic reactions will inspire development of new catalysts for energy technologies.

To study enzyme mechanisms, we combine spectroscopy, electrochemistry and structural studies. This includes using electrochemical control to manipulate crystals of hydrogenase into specific redox states for structural study. We use advanced structural approaches including x-ray free electron lasers for time-resolved structures and neutron diffraction to locate light atoms in proteins.

In parallel we are excited by the interface between academic discovery and technology innovation. We have developed and patented a series of hydrogen-driven approaches to heterogeneous biocatalysis, some of which are now licensed across to HydRegen, a company that we spun out from University of Oxford in 2021. These include hydrogen-driven NADH recycling to support biocatalytic reductions; biocatalytic hydrogenation of nitro compounds, and hydrogenase-driven reduction of flavins to support biocatalytic applications.

We continue to innovate, seeking cleaner, simpler ways of using enzymes for chemical synthesis.

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