Page 3 - PERIODIC Magazine Issue 7

N ews and achievements

A selection of recent highlights.
More news can be found at www.chem.ox.ac.uk

Professor Veronique Gouverneur has The SCG-Oxford Centre of Excellence in
been elected Fellow of the Royal Society for Chemistry and five Oxford chemists were
her pioneering work in fluorine chemistry for among the winners of the RSC’s 2019 prizes and awards,
applications in medicine. which celebrate outstanding work and achievements in
advancing the chemical sciences.

Professor Ben Davis has been elected James Naismith received the Tilden Prize, Justin
Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences Benesch the Norman Heatley Award, Veronique
for his work on the chemical understanding of Gouverneur the Organic Stereochemistry Award,
biomolecular function, especially carbohydrates Roel Dullens a Corday-Morgan Prize, and
and proteins.
Christopher Schofield the Interdisciplinary Award.
The SCG-Oxford Centre received the industry-
academia collaboration award for creating a unique and
Professor Philipp Kukura was named
Blavatnik Chemistry Laureate for 2019. Professor long-standing collaboration bringing benefits to chemical
Kukura’s work is revolutionising the way we science.
visualise and study processes in nature. By
detecting and measuring the scattering of visible
light from single biomolecules, he can determine
their mass and thereby analyse their structure
and properties.

Professor Dame Carol Robinson
and Professor Hagan Bayley were Professors Veronique Gouverneur and
recognised for their exceptional and outstanding Hagan Bayley were awarded European Research
contributions to science in the Royal Society Council (ERC) Advanced Grants for pioneering
awards. Dame Carol received the Royal Medal research projects. Funded through the EU
for her pioneering work on structural biology, and worth up to €2.5 million each, they allow
improving the understanding of proteins, their established top researchers to explore their most
interactions and functional regulation. Hagan creative ideas. Veronique’s research will explore new
received the Mullard Award for the invention avenues in phase transfer catalysis, and Hagan is leading
of stochastic nanosensing, a generalized research into remotely- controlled functional synthetic
sequencing method for biopolymers which has
delivered ultrarapid, distributable, wide-scale, tissues for applications in medicine.
‘long-read’ genome sequencing.

The Complete University Guide has
Professor Roel Dullens won the 2019 ranked the Department first in its latest league
McBain Medal for colloid and interface science. table for Chemistry. The independent guide
Roel’s research interests cover a wide range of provides prospective students with information
topics in soft condensed matter. on entry standards, student satisfaction, research
quality and graduate prospects. Oxford
Chemistry scored highly on all measures to achieve top
ranking.
Professor Stuart Conway began his
presidency of the Royal Society of Chemistry’s
Organic Division in July. Stuart’s election makes
it a hat-trick for Oxford Chemistry at the RSC,
as Professor Dame Carol Robinson is its current
President, and Professor Claire Vallance is
President of the Faraday Division. 3
Periodic
The Magazine of the Department of Chemistry