Scientists from the University of Bath and Imperial College London have been awarded the prestigious Malcolm Campbell Memorial Prize & Medal for 2009 for developing a potentially new type of drug that treats cancer.
The prize is awarded bi-annually by the Royal Society of Chemistry, Medicinal & Biological Chemistry Section, to the individual or team based in UK academia or industry who has made ‘the most significant contribution to biological chemistry published since January 2006′.
The prize is named after Malcolm Campbell, who was the first Professor of Organic Chemistry at Bath and did a great deal to establish the department’s reputation during the 1980s and 1990s, making a series of important contributions in applying organic chemistry to biological problems.
The Malcolm Campbell Memorial prize commemorates Professor Campbell’s outstanding contributions in a broad range of chemistry and their applications to the understanding of the biological activity of drugs.
This year’s award attracted high quality entries from both academia and industry and the prize has been awarded to the team of Dr LW Lawrence Woo and Professor Barry VL Potter of the Medicinal Chemistry Group, Department of Pharmacy & Pharmacology at the University of Bath, and Dr Atul Purohit and Professor Mike J Reed from the Faculty of Medicine at Imperial College London.
The researchers were awarded the prize – comprising of a certificate, medal and an award of £2000 – for their discovery of a new family of anti-cancer drugs called steroid sulfatase inhibitors, which are currently being explored as a treatment for cancer patients.
Steroid sulfatase inhibitors are a potential “First-in-Class” cancer therapy to treat breast and possibly some other tumours.
The molecular structure shows how the drug molecule (red and blue) interacts with and blocks steroid sulfatase (brown)
The researchers have been working on these therapies together for over 15 years and one agent is being developed by the pharmaceutical company Ipsen and is currently in several clinical trials.
The 2009 prize will be formally presented to the winning team during the Royal Society of Chemistry/Society of Chemical Industry Medicinal Chemistry Symposium at Cambridge in September.
Dr Gareth Price, Head of the Department of Chemistry, said: “As a department we were thrilled when the award was named after Malcolm Campbell.
“It is particularly pleasing to see the award recognising the high quality work being done at Bath.”
Professor Potter said: “Drug discovery and development is always a true team effort and rarely achieved in academia.
“We have worked closely with colleagues at Imperial College London for over 15 years on this fantastic project. Team awards are normally quite a rarity, but crucially they allow more junior members to get the recognition they so richly deserve.
“I am truly delighted that we all have been judged to have been competitive in this way.
“On a personal level, Professor Campbell was very instrumental in my move to Bath in the 1990s and was also very supportive of the regeneration of the Medicinal Chemistry Group in Pharmacy & Pharmacology along with the late Professor David Davies, who was then Head of School.
“It is certainly very poignant therefore that we have been chosen for this award.”