Corday-Morgan Mid-Career Prizes for Chemistry

2024 Corday-Morgan Prize Winner

Professor Gonçalo Bernardes, University of Cambridge

Awarded for the design, development and application of targeted therapeutics including small molecule-based RNA degradation and conditional activation of chemotherapeutics.

The Bernardes group bridges the gap between organic chemistry and biology to unlock fundamental biological knowledge and pave the way for the next generation of targeted therapeutics.

In chemistry, the term chemoselectivity refers to the ability of a reagent (a substance or compound that triggers a reaction) to single out a specific chemical group, ignoring other reaction pathways. Organic chemists have exploited this property to develop new catalysts and streamline the chemical synthesis of complex synthetic targets. Chemical biology takes this a step further. The group use this background in organic chemistry to harness the inherent reactivity of functional groups within biological macromolecules like DNA, RNA, and proteins to create biological probes and novel therapeutic agents.

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2024 Corday-Morgan Prize Winner

Professor Matthew Gibson, The University of Manchester

Awarded for transformative contributions in polymer and biomaterials science, particularly for the development of materials to stabilise biologics.

Storing and transporting biological materials is crucial to modern life, from frozen food to the safe delivery of blood transfusions, stem cells, or even organs. Professor Gibson and his team have learned from some of nature’s toughest organisms, which can survive sub-zero temperatures, to develop new materials which can protect biopharmaceuticals against cold stress.

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2024 Corday-Morgan Prize Winner

Professor Marina Kuimova, Imperial College London

Awarded for the development of unique probes and methodologies in fluorescence imaging leading to an understanding of dynamic biological processes in living systems, pertinent to health and disease.

Professor Kuimova obtained her Master’s degree at Moscow State University (Russia) and a doctorate at the University of Nottingham (UK) under the supervision of Professor M W George (in 2006), investigating DNA electron transfer using time-resolved infrared spectroscopy.

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Year	Name	Institution	Citation
2023	Professor Graeme Day	University of Southampton	Awarded for pioneering the development of computational methods for guiding the discovery of functional molecular crystals.
2023	Professor Carmen Domene	University of Bath	Awarded for the use of computational techniques to enhance understanding of fundamental biological processes at the molecular level.
2023	Professor Tomislav Friš膷i膰	University of Birmingham	Awarded for transformative contributions to the design, fundamental understanding and applications of solid-state materials, and of their mechanochemical and photochemical reactivity.
2023	Professor Richard Layfield	University of Sussex	Awarded for pioneering work in lanthanide and uranium chemistry including single-molecule magnetism.
2022	Professor Andrew Dove FRSC	University of Birmingham	Awarded for seminal contributions to controlling and understanding stereochemistry and degradation in polymeric materials.
2022	Professor Rebecca Goss FRSC	University of St Andrews	Awarded for pioneering the use of enzymatic halogenation/cross-coupling in C鈥扝 activation.
2021	Professor Matthew Fuchter	Imperial College London	Awarded for the development of chemistry-led approaches to interrogate function in chemistry, materials and medicine.
2021	Professor Junwang Tang	University College London	Awarded for the discovery of efficient photocatalysts for clean and renewable fuel synthesis.
2021	Professor Jan Verlet	Durham University	Awarded for the development and application of novel spectroscopic methods to probe the fundamental physical chemistry underpinning electron-molecule reactions.
2020	Professor Madhavi Krishnan	University of Oxford	Awarded for the invention of a ‘field free’ trap for confining and manipulating a single colloidal particle or molecule, enabling accurate and precise measurements of molecular charge in aqueous solution.
2020	Professor Rachel O'Reilly	University of Birmingham	Awarded for creative and comprehensive syntheses of functional, self-assembling polymeric materials.
2020	Professor Edward Tate	Imperial College London and the Francis Crick Institute	Awarded for contributions to discovery of novel chemical probes, and their application in opening up new understanding of protein modification in living systems, leading to the validation of novel drug targets in cancer and infectious disease.
2019	Professor Roel Dullens	University of Oxford	Awarded for world-leading research to elucidate definitive experimental answers to fundamental problems in condensed matter science.
2019	Professor Igor Larrosa	The University of Manchester	Awarded for groundbreaking contributions to C-H activation and decarboxylative cross-couplings in organic chemistry.
2019	Professor Aron Walsh	Imperial College London	Awarded for outstanding contributions to computational chemistry, in particular, to the study of hybrid organic-inorganic solids.
2018	Professor Erwin Reisner	University of Cambridge	Awarded for the development of solar-driven catalysis with molecularly engineered semiconductors and semi-artificial photosynthesis.
2018	Professor Oren Scherman	University of Cambridge	Awarded for ground-breaking discoveries in supramolecular chemistry.
2018	Professor Magdalena Titirici	Queen Mary University of London	Awarded for the production of low-cost biomass derived nanostructured carbons in water and their impact in renewable energy technologies.
2017	Professor Andrew Goodwin	University of Oxford	Awarded for his innovative studies of correlated disorder and its role in functional materials.
2017	Professor Eva Hevia	University of Strathclyde	Awarded for her research on polar organometallic chemistry and in particular important contributions towards air- and moisture-tolerant synthesis.
2017	Professor Tuomas Knowles	University of Cambridge	Awarded for his fundamental work on the mechanism of amyloid aggregation, including the discovery of the role of secondary nucleation.
2016	Professor Ian Fairlamb	University of York	Awarded for his fundamental mechanistic work in transition metal catalysis, organometallic chemistry and applied chemical synthesis.
2016	Professor Angelos Michaelides	University College London	Awarded for the development of computational methods and applications that have significantly advanced understanding of several important chemical systems.
2016	Professor Charlotte Williams	Imperial College London	Awarded for her work on polymer chemistry and catalysis and in particular recognition for her contributions to the catalytic activation of renewable resources to make polymers and fuels.
2015	Professor Sharon Ashbrook	University of St Andrews	Awarded for her contribution to the structure of materials combining solid-state NMR spectroscopy and first-principles calculations.
2015	Professor Andrei Khlobystov	University of Nottingham	Awarded for his pioneering work on carbon nano-containers and nano-reactors leading to new ways of directing molecular assembly and studying chemical reactions.
2015	Professor Stephen Liddle	University of Nottingham	Awarded for his outstanding contributions to actinide chemistry, including significant advances in our understanding of the bonding, reactivity and magnetism in uranium and thorium compounds in particular.
2014	Professor Milo Shaffer	Imperial College London	Awarded for the development of transformative new nanocarbon chemistry and applications that can be applied at a practical scale.
2014	Professor David Spring	University of Cambridge	Awarded for his contributions to chemistry-driven drug discovery through his work in diversity-oriented synthesis and chemical biology.
2014	Professor Molly Stevens	Imperial College London	Awarded for her research in the field of biomedical materials, especially her development of nanoparticles and diagnostic platforms that can detect biomarkers corresponding to specific disease states such as cancer and infectious disease.
2013	Professor Matthew Gaunt	University of Cambridge	Awarded for his key advances in enantioselective catalysis, Pd-catalyzed C-H functionalization, and pioneering research in the field of Cu catalysis with diaryliodonium salts.
2013	Dr Martin Heeney	Imperial College London	Awarded for his pioneering research into organic materials synthesis, achieved since moving from industry into successful independent academic career.
2013	Professor Jonathan Reid	University of Bristol	Awarded for outstanding achievements in the study of physical and chemical properties of aerosol particles.
2012	Professor Polly Arnold	University of Edinburgh	Awarded for her outstanding contributions to the application of organometallic uranium chemistry to small molecule activation.
2012	Professor Lee Cronin	University of Glasgow	Awarded for his outstanding work on the self-assembly of inorganic molecules and the engineering of complex systems.
2012	Professor David Smith	University of York	Awarded for his signigificant contributions to supramolecular and nanoscale chemistry, specifically to: (i) self-assembling gels and other nanomaterials, (ii) Bioactive multivalent dendrons with applications in nanomedicine.
2011	Michaele Hardie	University of Leeds	Awarded for her significant contributions to the assembly of metal complexes and their crystal engineering.
2011	Fred Manby	University of Bristol	Awarded for his contributions to the development of explicitly correlated electronic structure theory, and of electronic structure methods for condensed phases.
2011	Jonathan Nitschke	University of Cambridge	Awarded for his innovative use of dynamic metal-ligand chemistry to create entirely new functional supramolecular systems in water.
2010	Euan Brechin	University of Edinburgh	Awarded for the development of new principles for the synthesis of molecular magnetic materials, for the understanding of their magnetic behaviour and for the development of their applications especially in magnetic cooling.
2010	Jason Chin	MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology	Awarded for his pioneering work on genetically encoding the synthesis of novel polymers in cells through the development of methods to incorporate, for example, new amino acids.
2010	Jonathan Steed	Durham University	Awarded for his outstanding contributions in the fields of supramolecular and structural chemistry.
2009	Andrew Cooper	University of Liverpool	Awarded for his outstanding contributions to materials chemistry, in particular with porous organic polymers.
2009	Andrew deMello	Imperial College London	Awarded for his pioneering work in microfluidics, and in the field of nanobioanalytical research.
2009	Duncan Graham	University of Strathclyde	Awarded for his outstanding and pioneering contributions to nanometrology in support of molecular manipulation and chemical and biological detection systems.
2008	Stephen Faulkner	University of Oxford	Awarded for pioneering contributions to the coordination chemistry and spectroscopy of the f-block elements, and for his application of kinetically stable metal complexes in the preparation of more complicated architectures.
2008	Adam Nelson	University of Leeds	Awarded for his applications of organic chemistry to novel asymmetric synthesis, and to chemical biology through the directed evolution of enzymes.
2008	David Tozer	Durham University	Awarded for his outstanding contributions to the development and application of density functional theory.
2007	This Award was not awarded for 2007
2007	This Award was not awarded for 2007
2007	This Award was not awarded for 2007
2006	Professor Neil R Champness	University of Nottingham	Distinguished for his work on the control of nanostructures of molecular species on surfaces and his contribution to the topology of network solids.
2006	Professor Timothy J Donohoe	University of Oxford	Distinguished for his many exciting contributions to synthetic organic chemistry, including asymmetric hydroxylations, oxidative cyclisation, reduction of aromatic heterocycles and applications to total synthesis.
2006	Dr Jeremy N Harvey	University of Bristol	Distinguished for his outstanding computational investigations of spin-forbidden reactions.
2005	Dr Ben G Davis	University of Oxford	Distinguished for his contributions to the synthetic chemistry of carbohydrates and to glycobiology.
2005	Professor Helen H Fielding	University College London	Distinguished for her innovative and creative use of both experiment and theory to understand and control the dynamics of Rydberg and vibrational wavepackets.
2005	Professor Philip A Gale	University of Southampton	Distinguished for his contributions to coordination and supramolecular chemistry, in particular selective anion recognition and sensing.
2004	Dr Stuart C Althorpe	University of Nottingham	Distinguished for his original work in the development of new quantum mechanical methods for the study of chemical reaction dynamics.
2004	Professor David W C MacMillan	California Institute of Technology	Distinguished for his seminal contributions to asymmetric organocatalysis of carbon-carbon bond-forming reactions, including the Claisen rearrangement, Diels-Alder cycloadditions and Aldol reactions.
2004	Professor James H Naismith	University of St Andrews	Distinguished for his contributions to the structures of a number of key enzymes, and to the understanding of their chemistry and biology.
2003	Professor Jonathan P Clayden	University of Manchester	Distinguished for his seminal contributions to the synthesis of materials and in particular, for his work on solid state metathesis and atmospheric pressuree chemical vapour deposition.
2003	Professor Mike W George	University of Nottingham	Distinguished for his exceptional contributions to experimental studies on reaction intermediates using ultrafast time-resolved vibrational spectroscopy.
2003	Professor Guy C Lloyd-Jones	University of Bristol	Distinguished for his work encompassing asymmetric synthesis and catalysis, physical organic chemistry, transition metal chemistry, spectroscopy and mechanistic studies.
2002	Dr Alan Armstrong	Imperial College London	Distinguished for his work on catalytic asymmetric epoxidation and the total synthesis of (+)-zaragozic acid C.
2002	Dr Shankar Balasubramanian	University of Cambridge	Distinguished for his world-class studies at the interface of chemistry and biology, including the fluorescence resonance energy transfer work on biomolecules, the synthesis and characterisation of nucleic acids including the catalytic region of human telomerase, and the invention of a photochemical linker for application in the field of combinatorial chemistry.
2002	Professor Russell E Morris	University of St Andrews	Distinguished for his work on the development of methods of inorganic, organic and organometallic synthesis for the preparation of inorganic/organic hybrid materials with specific reactivity and/or predetermined architectures, especially porous solids (zeolites) and dendrimer materials, and for the development of new crystallographic methods for the determination of their structures.
2002	Professor Stephen D Price	University College London	Distinguished for his innovative measurements on the fundamental dynamics of reactions involving doubly charged cations and his development of experiments designed to mimic reactions on interstellar dust grains.
2001	Dr Harry L Anderson	University of Oxford	Distinguished for his original work on the design, synthesis and properties of supramolecular systems and functional materials.
2001	Professor Gideon J Davies	University of York	Distinguished for his insightful work on the structural and mechanistic basis of enzyme-catalysed glycosyl transfer.
2001	Professor Steve M Howdle	University of Nottingham	Distinguished for his innovative applications of supercritical fluids to synthesise polymers and biocompatible materials.
2001	Professor Patrick R Unwin	University of Warwick	Distinguished for his development and application of new techniques to study physicochemical processes at liquid/solid, liquid/liquid and liquid/gas interfaces.
2000	Dr Colin D Bain	University of Oxford	Distinguished for his spectroscopic studies of liquid/vapour and liquid/solid interfaces.
2000	Professor Matthew J Rosseinsky	University of Liverpool	Distinguished for his work in the general area of solid state chemistry and materials, particularly fulleride salts, the synthesis of materials having colossal magnetoresistance and the construction of microporous solids from molecular precursors.
2000	Professor Jonathan M J Williams	University of Bath	Distinguished for his contributions to synthetic organic methodology, particularly in the design of ligands for asymmetric catalysis.
1999	Professor Kenneth D M Harris	University of Birmingham	Distinguished for his exceptionally versatile contributions to the elucidation of the structure, dynamics and reactivity of organic molecular crystals.
1999	Professor Christopher A Hunter	University of Sheffield	Distinguished for his contribution to molecular recognition including quantitative studies of non-covalent molecular interactions expecially between aromatic systems, preparation of non-covalent supramolecular assemblies with novel properties, and studies into the fine structure of duplex nucleic acids.
1999	Dr Mike D Ward	University of Bristol	Distinguished for his work in heterocyclic ligand-transition metal coordination chemistry, and particularly for the development of potential molecular wires, luminescent complexes and supramolecular assemblies.
1998	Varinder K Aggarwal
1998	J Paul Attfield
1998	Donald Craig
1997	Dr Ian Manners	University of Toronto	Distinguished for his seminal contributions to inorganic and organometallic polymer chemistry, including ingenious use of ring-opening reactions to generate polymers containing both transition metal and main group chain-forming elements.
1997	Dr David E Manolopoulos	University of Oxford	Distinguished for his outstanding contributions to understanding the structure and stability of fullerenes, fundamental aspects of chemical dynamics, and the development of computational methods.
1997	Dr Dermot M O'Hare	University of Oxford	Distinguished for his outstanding contributions to new intercalation and chalcogenide compounds as superconductors, and for the elegant use of X-ray and neutron diffrection and NMR spectroscopy for their in situ characterisation.
1996	Professor Duncan W Bruce	University of Exeter	Distinguished for his innovative multi-disciplinary approach to the synthesis and characterisation of metal-containing liquid crystals with novel properties.
1996	M J Hampden-Smith
1996	Dr Nicholas J Turner	University of Edinburgh	Distinguished for his contributions to enzyme-catalysed organic synthesis, and studies of the biosynthesis of carbocyclic nucleoside.
1995	Andrew R Barron
1995	Jeremy G Frey
1995	Gerard F R Parkin
1993-1994	Vernon C Gibson
1993-1994	Nigel S Simpkins
1993-1994	Timothy P Softley
1992	Paul D Beer
1992	Timothy C Gallagher
1992	David E Logan	University of Oxford
1991	David Gani
1991	Jeremy M Hutson
1991	Professor Stephen Mann	University of Bath
1990	David Crich
1990	Patrick W Fowler
1990	Ian P Rothwell
1989	Michael N R Ashfold	University of Bristol
1989	David C Clary	University of Cambridge
1989	Martin Schroder	University of Edinburgh
1988	F Geoffrey N Cloke	University of Sussex
1988	Gareth A Morris	University of Manchester
1988	Peter J Sarre
1988	Stephen G Withers
1987	John M Newsam
1987	A Guy Orpen
1987	David Parker	Durham University
1986	Professor Anthony G M Barrett	Northwestern University
1986	G Christou
1986	Paul R Raithby
1985	William Clegg
1985	Peter P Edwards
1985	Christopher J Moody
1984	N J Cooper
1984	Stephen G Davies
1984	A Harriman
1983	David J Cole-Hamilton
1983	W Jones
1983	William B Motherwell
1982	Anthony K Cheetham	University of Oxford
1982	Robert H Crabtree	Yale University
1982	Thomas J Simpson
1981	Christopher M Dobson	University of Oxford
1981	Brian J Howard
1981	D A Jefferson
1980	Gus Hancock
1980	Selby A R Knox
1980	Steven V Ley
1979	Malcolm H Chisholm
1979	Geraldine A Kenney-Wallace	University of Toronto
1979	S M Roberts
1978	Philip D Magnus
1978	David M P Mingos	University of Oxford
1978	George M Sheldrick	University of Cambridge
1977	Laurence D Barron
1977	B T Golding
1977	J Steven Ogden
1976	Melvyn R Churchill
1976	Roger Grice
1976	Kevin M Smith
1975	Robert J Donovan
1975	J A Osborn
1975	Gerry Pattenden
1974	Laurance D Hall
1974	Brian F G Johnson
1974	A McKillop
1973	Jack E Baldwin	Massachusetts Institute of Technology
1973	Geoffrey R Luckhurst
1973	John F Nixon
1972	Dr Malcolm L H Green	University of Oxford
1972	David Husain
1972	P G Sammes
1971	M J Perkins
1971	L F Phillips
1971	P L Timms
1970	Professor A David Buckingham	University of Cambridge
1970	Donald W Cameron
1970	N B H Jonathan
1969	Peter Day
1969	M Green
1969	Gordon W Kirby
1968	A Fish
1968	Frank McCapra
1968	D H Williams
1967	Dr Alan Carrington	University of Cambridge
1967	Professor Richard O C Norman	University of York
1967	Dr John Meurig Thomas	University of Wales, Bangor
1966	Richard N Dixon
1966	M L E Tobe
1965	Professor John I G Cadogan	University of St Andrews
1965	R Mason
1964	H M Frey
1964	A Ian Scott
1963	George Sim
1962	Neil Bartlett	University of British Columbia
1961	Franz Sondheimer	Weizmann Institute of Science
1960	Dr Robert N Haszeldine	University of Cambridge
1959	Dr Alan R Battersby	University of Manchester
1958	Professor Charles Kemball	Queen's University Belfast
1957	Professor George W Kenner	University of Liverpool
1956	K W Bagnall
1955	Professor George Porter	University of Sheffield
1954	Dr Rex E Richards	University of Oxford
1953	Dr John W Cornforth	MRC National Institute for Medical Research
1952	Dr James Baddiley	Lister Institute of Preventative Medicine
1951	Dr Frederick Sanger	University of Cambridge
1950	Dr Ronald S Nyholm	University College London
1949	Dr Derek H R Barton	Imperial College London

Re-thinking recognition: Science prizes for the modern world

This report is the result of an independent review of our recognition programmes. Our aim in commissioning this review was to ensure that our recognition portfolio continues to deliver the maximum impact for chemical scientists, chemistry and society.

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