Blake Balcomb

Blake is the Senior Beamline Scientist responsible for managing the XChem facility and its academic user program. Prior to the role of Senior Beamline Scientist, Blake first joined the XChem team as PDRA working on the AI-driven Structure-enabled Antiviral Platform (ASAP), followed by Beamline Scientist for XChem.

Blake completed his PhD in Biochemistry (2019) in Professor Erick Strauss’s research group at Stellenbosch University followed by a post-doctoral fellowship funded under the auspices of the GCRF-START and GC Africa programme. His research projects focused on novel bacterial flavoproteins that are involved in resisting the hosts’ neutrophil-derived chemical attacks. His post-doctoral research was aimed at developing inhibitors against a novel bacterial target for use as host defense adjuvants. The drug discovery strategy employed a high throughput method utilizing parallel synthesis combined with X-ray structure-accelerated synthesis-aligned lead discovery (XChem). Prior to Stellenbosch, Blake completed an M.A. in Biochemistry and Biophysics on a Fulbright Scholarship at The University of Kansas with Professor Audrey Lamb. Blake has interests in science education, enzymology, drug discovery, structural biology and biophysics.