Professor Barry Potter from our Department of Pharmacy & Pharmacology has secured a prestigious Wellcome Trust Senior Investigator Award - the first ever won by a researcher from the University.

Senior Investigator Awards support "exceptional world-class researchers who hold an established academic position and have a compelling vision for their research. They offer the flexibility and time to enable researchers to tackle the most important questions in their field."

The Award will fund Professor Potter’s research entitled ‘Chemical Biology of Cellular Signalling using Polyphosphate Messengers’ for the next five years - underpinned by the still emerging scientific discipline of chemical biology.

Professor Potter’s research group has established an international reputation in studying the way in which cells communicate using chemical messenger molecules. Its unique focus is upon synthesizing these molecules using organic chemistry, modifying their structure to ‘design in’ new properties and to use these as both tools in biology and drugs in clinical medicine.

Professor Potter said: “Competition for research funding is truly fierce at present and I am therefore particularly delighted to receive this award. It reflects very positively the hard work and success of my Wellcome Trust funded postdoctoral colleagues over the years and underlines the general esteem in which medicinal chemistry at the University is held.”