Mahima Sharma is a Research Fellow with expertise in structural enzymology and biocatalysis projects. She is currently working as a RCo-Investigator on BBSRC grant BB/W003805 on molecular dissection of sulfoglycolysis pathways with Prof. Gideon Davies, FMedSci, FRS, at the York Structural Biology Laboratory. Mahima is a 2021 RSC Horizon Prize awardee for collaborative research with industrial partners, GSK, Prozomix, and Manchester Institute of Biotechnology and also won a recent 2024 RSC Horizon Prize, for her work on breakdown pathways of ubiquitous plant sulfolipids, with researchers from University of Melbourne, Meiji University and Kyoto University.

Previously, she completed her DPhil in Chemical Biology from the University of Oxford in 2015 and worked on designing artificial metalloenzymes for C-C cross-coupling reactions under the supervision of Prof. Benjamin G. Davis, FRS, and then began  her postdoctoral work on structural and biochemical studies of enzymes enabling chiral amine synthesis (IREDs and reductive aminases) with Prof. Gideon Grogan and Prof. Nicholas J. Turner.

Her current project is focussed upon investigation of biosynthesis and degradation pathways of sulfoquinovose (SQ), a sulfur containing sugar liberated from sulfolipids found in thylakoid membrane of chloroplasts in plants. These SQ catabolic pathways prevalent in the environment will further our understanding of how sulfur is circulated from this major organosulfur reservoir.