Anais Cassaignau

Anaïs joined Carpmaels & Ransford in 2021 as a Trainee Patent Attorney in the Life Sciences Biotechnology group. She graduated with a first-class degree in Biochemistry from University College London (UCL), ranking first in her cohort. Following this, Anaïs pursued a PhD and postdoctoral stay at UCL in Structural and Molecular Biology.

During her PhD and postdoc, Anaïs studied how proteins – the workhorses of the cell – collapse into their functional folds while they are synthesised by ribosomes. She used NMR spectroscopy together with biochemical approaches to describe how the ribosome itself has a strong influence on protein folding. Her first-author papers were published in several high-impact papers including Nature Structural & Molecular Biology and Nature Chemistry and are leading to the design of novel therapeutic approaches in disease. During her postdoc, Anaïs was a committee member of the UCL Therapeutics Innovation Network, she co-organised three international conferences in her field and she mentored several undergraduate and PhD students in the laboratory.

Outside of the office, Anaïs enjoys travelling and outdoor activities, in particular hiking and swimming.