Awards

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Malcolm Campbell Memorial Prize – history
Malcolm Campbell Memorial Prize 2021 – call for nominations 
Malcolm Campbell Memorial Prize 2019 – announcement of winners
Malcolm Campbell Memorial Prize 2019 – presentation with photograph

Overview
The Malcolm Campbell Memorial Prize is awarded biennially by the RSC BMCS to commemorate Professor Campbell’s outstanding contributions in a broad range of chemistry and their applications to the understanding of bioactivity. The award comprises £2000 and a medal as well as one free attendance at an RSC BMCS conference in the year of the award.

Malcolm Campbell Memorial Prize 2021 – Call for Nominations
The BMCS are now actively seeking nominations for this biennial prize, invited from an individual or team who has made the most significant scientific contribution to biological chemistry. The prize-winner(s) may be from academia or industry, and their work should be timely and contemporaneous. The Prize has a value of £2,000, and is presented at the next RSC/ SCI Cambridge MedChem symposium. Please see the PDF below for more information.

Criteria
Submissions are invited from individuals or teams in industry and academia with a British research centre mailing address although work may be from several worldwide groups.

Seminal publications which may include presentations in the public domain and/or patents from the submitting individual or team relating to work of biological and/or medicinal chemistry interest including discovery, process development, agrochemical and aromachemical research.

Submissions may be a culmination of a series of papers published in recent years prior to the award.

Submissions must be accompanied by written permission from Heads of Department or Managers for the release of the work details.

All submissions should be sent to the Conference Secretariat.
The closing date for the 2021 Memorial Prize was 31st October 2020.

Malcolm Campbell Memorial Prize 2019 – Announcement of Winners
The Royal Society of Chemistry Biological and Medicinal Chemistry Sector is proud to announce the winners of the Malcolm Campbell Memorial Prize for 2019.

The prize has been awarded to Dr Christopher W. Murray, Astex Pharmaceuticals, Dr Patrick Angibaud, Janssen-Cilag and Professor Herbie Newell, Northern Institute for Cancer Research (NICR), Newcastle University as representatives of the wider team who collaborated to discover and develop erdafitinib.

Erdafitinib, is a novel selective pan-FGFR inhibitor that has great potential in the treatment of metastatic urothelial cancer. Patients with metastatic bladder cancer have a poor prognosis and 15-20 % of these patients exhibit FGFR alterations. Through a collaboration between NICR and Astex, early FGFR inhibitors were identified using a fragment-based approach. These early compounds were further optimized and developed clinically in a collaboration between Astex and Janssen that led to erdafitinib. In March 2018, erdafitinib was given Breakthrough Therapy Designation by the FDA for the treatment of metastatic urothelial cancer and in September 2018, Janssen submitted a New Drug Application to the FDA seeking approval. The Phase 2 study in this patient population showed an overall response rate of 42% for patients whose tumours harboured actionable FGFR alterations.
The BMCS Committee wishes to express its gratitude for the high-quality entries from both academia and industry for the 2019 prize.

The Malcolm Campbell Memorial Prize commemorates Professor Campbell’s outstanding contributions in a broad range of chemistry and their applications to the understanding of bioactivity.

The prize was presented formally to the winning team during the 20th RSC/ SCI Medicinal Chemistry Symposium, held at Churchill College, Cambridge on 8th–11th September 2019.