Awards

Malcolm Campbell Memorial Prize

Downloads

Malcolm Campbell Memorial Prize 2025 Call for Nominations

Malcolm Campbell Prize Winners Announcement 2023

Malcolm Campbell Memorial Prize – history

Malcolm Campbell Memorial Prize 2021 – announcement of winners and presentation

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 2025 – 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.

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, Hg3 Conferences. Submissions should be made no later than 30th November 2024 (please note the deadline has been extended from 31st October).

Malcolm Campbell Memorial Prize 2023 – Announcement of Winners

The Royal Society of Chemistry’s Biological and Medicinal Sector (BMCS) is proud to announce the winners of the Malcolm J. Campbell Memorial Prize for 2023. The prize has been awarded to Professors Anthony G.M. Barrett, Matthew J. Fuchter, R. Charles Coombes and Simak Ali of Imperial College London, for the discovery and early development of first-in-class cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK7) inhibitor, Samuraciclib for breast cancer.
Based on novel insights of the role CDK7 in breast cancer pathology developed within the Imperial College team, Samuraciclib was the product of an intensive academic medicinal chemistry and drug discovery programme. The prize committee were particularly impressed by the success of the team in raising over £5m from Cancer Research UK and EPSRC to fund the discovery programme. Furthermore, based on the IP generated, the team successfully secured a licensing deal with Carrick Therapeutics to progress Samuraciclib into early clinical studies. To date Phase 1/2 clinical studies have established maximum tolerated dose and early indications of patient benefit.
BMCS congratulates the team on their success in an academic setting of translating early preclinical research into promising clinical benefit for breast cancer patients.

Malcolm Campbell Memorial Prize – Previous Winners

2021
British scientists and clinical researchers who contributed to the COVID-19 response (received on their behalf by Sir Patrick Vallance, Chief Scientific Adviser to the Government of the UK)

2019
The FGFR discovery team: Christopher W Murray, Patrick Angibaud, and Herbie Newell
Astex Pharmaceuticals, Janssen Pharmaceutica, and the Northern Institute for Cancer Research (NICR), Newcastle University
Development of Erdafitinib

2017
Osimertinib Team
AstraZeneca
Development of TAGRISSOTM

2015
Miles Congreve, Fiona Marshall and Malcom Weir
Heptares
GPCR drug discovery

2013
BrilintaTM/BriliqueTM Team
AstraZeneca
Development of  BrilintaTM/BriliqueTM

2011
Paul O’Neill, Kevin Park and Stephen Ward
University of Liverpool
Research and Development of Anti-Malaria Agents

2009
Lawrence Woo and Barry Potter
University of Bath
Atul Purohit and Michael Reed
Imperial College, London
Discovery of Steroid Sulfatase Inhibitors

2007
Jonathan Bennett, Anton Bom, Alan Muir, Ronald Palin, David Rees and Ming Zhang
Organon
Development of Sugammadex

2005§
David O’Hagan
University of St Andrews
Research on Fluorinating Enzymes

2005§
Tony Wood
Pfizer
Development of CCR5 Antagonists 

2003
Malcolm Stevens, Andrew Westwell & Tracy Bradshaw
Cancer Research UK
Discovery of the Anticancer Compound Fortress & Related Work

§ Joint winners

A history of the Prize is available to download.

 

Contact and Further Information

RSC BMCS Secretariat, Hg3 Conferences Ltd

E-mail: Conference Secretariat.