Royal Society prize for pioneering Dundee scientist
A pioneering University of Dundee scientist and founder of the Drug Discovery Unit has been honoured by the Royal Society for his ground-breaking work.
Professor Sir Mike Ferguson, Regius Professor of Life Sciences, has been awarded the Leeuwenhoek Medal, one of the Society’s most prestigious accolades.
Named after the Dutch microscopist Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, often referred to as the ‘Father of Microbiology’, the prize recognises excellence in the fields of bacteriology, virology, mycology, parasitology, or microscopy. Sir Mike will receive the accolade for his major contributions in molecular parasitology and for its application to the treatment of neglected infectious diseases.
He said, “I feel deeply honoured to receive the Leeuwenhoek Medal of the Royal Society and humbled to join the ranks of previous recipients. This award reflects the creativity and dedication of many co-researchers and collaborators across numerous disciplines, and I thank all of them for making this possible.”
Sir Mike has published over 250 peer reviewed research papers and is known for solving the first structures of glycosylphosphatidylinositol (GPI) membrane anchors, which play important roles throughout eukaryotic biology.
He obtained a PhD in Biochemistry at London University in 1982 and was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Rockefeller University, New York, and at Oxford University. He took up a lectureship at Dundee in 1988 and was promoted to a personal chair in Molecular Parasitology in 1994. In 2013, he was appointed the first Regius Professor of Life Sciences.
Recently, he has been integral to the development of the Growing the Tay Cities BioMedical Cluster component of the Tay Cities Deal and in 2019 was knighted for services to science. He is currently joint Interim Dean of the School of Life Sciences.
Sir Mike’s latest accolade is part of the Royal Society’s annual awards to the nation’s foremost scientists.
Sir Adrian Smith, President of the Royal Society, said, “The recipients of this year’s medals and awards have all made outstanding contributions to science and its applications for the benefit of humanity. They have done so by furthering our understanding of the processes that govern the world around us, changing the practices of academia to build a more robust and inclusive research environment, and engaging new audiences.”
