News

The organising committee from recent BMCS Postgraduate Symposium held in Oxford would like to thank all speakers, poster presenters, delegates, exhibitors and sponsors for helping to make a very successful meeting. 

The winners of the abstract prizes (pictured) were: Best oral prize awarded to Jacob Bradbury, (University of Oxford), oral runner up prize awarded to Julian Chesti (University of Leeds), best poster prize (not pictured) was awarded to Isabel R Mathiesen (The Francis Crick Institute), the poster runner up prize was awarded to Jiayin Zhuang (Imperial College London) and the people’s poster prize was awarded to Benjamin Owen (University of Nottingham).

Thanks go to RSC Med Chem for sponsoring prizes.

The organising committee from recent RSC/SCI Targeted Protein Degradation 4 meeting held in Cranfield would like to thank all speakers, poster presenters, delegates, exhibitors, sponsors and Zoe Hansom and colleagues at SCI Secretariat for helping to make a very successful meeting.  The winners of the poster prizes (pictured) were: Selma Gulyurtlu (runner up), The Dundee-Almirall PROTAC collaboration, Centre for Targeted Protein Degradation, Dundee and Eleanor Taylor-Newman (first), Durham University. Thanks to RSC Med Chem for sponsoring prizes. We look forward to a future Targeted Protein Degradation 5. Also pictured OC: Katherine Jones, Suzanne O’Connor, Nicola Chessum, Stuart Cameron and Hannah Woodward (Sean Bew not included).

RSC BMCS was delighted to formally induct Dr Mike Hann into its Hall of Fame for 2024 at the recent RSC/SCI Targeted Protein Degradation 4 meeting held in Cranfield. Mike, who gave a presentation “A Career doing STUFF”, is seen here with Certificate and Silver Medal. Nominations for 2025 are now being accepted at https://www.rscbmcs.org/awards/halloffame/

📢RSC Medicinal Chemistry is excited to announce that nominations for the 2025 RSC Medicinal Chemistry Emerging Investigator Lectureship are now open!

This is open to anyone within 12 yrs post-PhD, working independently in the field of medicinal chemistry and drug discovery. Past winners include Luca Laraia (2024), Christoph Nitsche (2023), and Nir London (2022).

Details about how to nominate can be found here: https://lnkd.in/eUzcEXMc

⏰Nominate before 31 October 2024!

Please send your nominations to our inbox, medchem-rsc@rsc.org

#RSCMedChem

The RSC BMCS is proud to announce that the 2024 Hall of Fame medal and certificate presentation to Dr Mike Hann will take place at Targeted Protein Degradation 4 conference on October 15-16 2024 at Cranfield University. As part of this exciting meeting, Mike will present his lecture “A career doing STUFF”.

Further details on the meeting can be found here: https://www.soci.org/events/fine-chemicals-group/2024/targeting-protein-degradation-4

The Biological and Medicinal Chemistry Sector (BMCS) is an important interest group within the UK’s Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC), it’s main goal being to share knowledge within the sector, primarily by organizing high quality scientific meetings.

The group also supports learning and development, via grants to schools (£25,000 per year), travel bursaries to university students to attend science meetings, and Researcher Mobility Fellowships to encourage short exchange placements between academic institutions and industry. We also recognise excellence in science through a number of awards.

To find out more, see our ChemMedChem article:

Biological and Medicinal Chemistry Sector of The Royal Society of Chemistry: Promoting Chemistry Learning, Networking and Excellence for Baby Boomers through to Gen Alpha! – Bagal – ChemMedChem – Wiley Online Library

The annual RSC Medicinal Chemistry Emerging Investigator Lectureship recognises a researcher who has made a significant contribution to medicinal chemistry and drug discovery in their independent academic career, and is open to candidates who received their PhD within the last 10 years.

Congratulations to Christoph Nitsche, the winner of the 2023 Emerging Investigator Lectureship. Dr Nitsche’s interdisciplinary research program focuses on infectious diseases, bioorthogonal chemistry, and peptide and protein modification. Please click on the below links to be taken to the website or blog post to read more about the winner and the Lectureship:

https://www.rsc.org/journals-books-databases/about-journals/rsc-medicinal-chemistry/rsc-medicinal-chemistry-emerging-investigator-lectureship-award/

https://blogs.rsc.org/md/2023/05/23/winner-of-the-2023-rsc-medicinal-chemistry-emerging-investigator-lectureship/?doing_wp_cron=1685455148.9952039718627929687500

Thanks to all our speakers, poster presenters, delegates, sponsors and exhibitors for making Postgraduate Symposium XVI at University of Oxford on 9 December 2022 a great success.

Congratulations to Nicola Ashman of University of Cambridge, winner of best oral presentation and Jennifer Carter of University of Oxford, runner-up. Winner of the best poster was Clara Gathmann of UCL, and runner-up was Harry Wilders of University of Strathclyde and GSK. Rebecca Stevens of University of Strathclyde and GSK was voted by delegates as winner of the people’s poster prize.

The past year has been another extremely challenging one, to say the least. I’d imagine that most committee members have had their full course of COVID vaccinations, and their booster shots too. I haven’t heard about a new round of boosters, but I wouldn’t bet against it!

In the face of these external challenges we have adapted and continued with our regular programme of activities. Virtual and blended meetings have gone ahead, and been tremendously successful, on both a scientific and financial basis, though it has to be said that delegate feedback from the blended meetings suggests there is a strong desire for a return to more physical meetings. The ESG, BMCS Lectureships, Hall of Fame and International Travel Prize Initiatives have carried on, and continued to draw interest from applicants as well as recognition for the impact of the Group. Our links with RSC Medicinal Chemistry have been strengthened, to mutual benefit, as have our interactions with other scientific societies and organisations. Many of the latter have looked to us for our experience and expertise in running virtual and hybrid meetings. I would like to convey my heartfelt thanks to everyone in the group who’s helped to drive these initiatives forward, they wouldn’t be happening without your hard work.

We are delighted to announce our new Editor-in-Chief for RSC Medicinal Chemistry, Professor Mike Waring.

“RSC Medicinal Chemistry is one of the premier medicinal chemistry journals and we look forward to continuing to publish cutting edge science with the highest standards of rigour. I hope that the work published in the journal will lead to the continued dissemination and evolution of best practice in our discipline that will drive our ability to deliver new therapies more effectively.”

About Mike:

Mike Waring is Chair of Medicinal Chemistry at Newcastle University and Head of Chemistry for the Cancer Research UK Newcastle Drug Discovery Unit.  He was previously Principal Scientist in Medicinal Chemistry at AstraZeneca.

Mike has worked mainly in the areas of diabetes and oncology and his work has contributed to the discovery of 14 drug candidates, including the marketed EGFR inhibitor osimertinib (Tagrisso™). He has made significant contributions to the field in many areas, perhaps most notably property-based optimisation, covalent inhibition, novel binding modes and new methods of hit generation.  He is a 2018 American Chemical Society Hero of Chemistry, recipient of the 2017 RSC Malcolm Campbell Medal, and an elected fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry.