Richard obtained a BSc. in Biology, and an MSc. (Distinction) in Oncology from Nottingham University before completing his PhD in Leeds, applying proteomics to study renal cell carcinoma and developing methods for identifying tumour markers and antigens.
Moving to Manchester for his post-Doc, he developed methods for the proteomic analysis of leukaemic and normal haematopoietic cell and stem cell (phospho)proteomes, establishing mass spectrometry for large scale relative protein quantification and phosphorylation site mapping. During this time, he developed the MIDAS (MRM-Initiated Detection and Sequencing) workflow for the sensitive detection of post-translational modifications, including phosphorylation, acetylation and proline hydroxylation. This workflow was extended to include relative and 'absolute' quantification of post-translational modification levels between samples, and is useful for the sensitive detection of any peptide, particularly in establishing MRM/SRM-type assays for biomarker validation workflows.
In 2011, he took up the post of Proteomics Lead at Central Manchester NHS Foundation Trust as part of the Centre for Advanced Discovery and Experimental Therapeutics (CADET), a joint venture with The University of Manchester. The Centre primarily focussed on the discovery of novel targets for therapeutic intervention, to define key pathways in disease progression, and extend these studies into the development and characterisation of novel therapeutics. As well as standard -omics-type analysis, Richard developed assays for targeted quantification of proteins and small molecules, providing data on pharmacokinaetics on both new and existing medications, and allowing the analysis of novel disease biomarkers in large sample cohorts.
In April 2017, Richard moved back to The University of Manchester to take up a Research Fellowship position in order to pursue his own research into how protein expression levels are altered in diseases, primarily in neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's Disease.
In April 2019, he was awarded a Senior Lectureship and became Deputy Diector of the Stoller Biomarker Discovery Centre (link)