School of the Biological Sciences

Our achievements

Following a long and distinguished record over many years, the School continues to provide a research home to outstanding scientists of today.

Since 2000 several members and former members of the School including Tim Hunt, Martin Evans, Roger Tsien, Elizabeth Blackburn, Bob Edwards and most recently John Gurdon have been awarded a Nobel Prize. Current staff have received many other awards and some of the most recent are mentioned here.

In 2011 awards included the Royal Society Buchanan Medal for Steve Jackson and the Colworth Prize Lecture of the Society for General Microbiology for George Salmond. Trevor Robbins and Barry Everitt were joint recipients of the American Psychological Association Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award. Lora Heisler won the Obesity Society Lilly Scientific Achievement Award. Christine Holt won the Remedios Caro Almela Prize for Developmental Neurobiology. Andrew Balmford was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society together with several colleagues in other Schools and our Partner Institutes who were made Fellows. Nearer the end of the year Peter Leadlay was awarded the Inhoffen Medal, Usha Goswami the British Psychological Society President's Award for Distinguished Contributions to Psychological Knowledge and Barry Everitt the Distinguished Achievement Award from the European Behavioural Pharmacology Society.

In the 2012 New Year's Honours Trevor Robbins was awarded a CBE for services to medical research. The Biochemical Society announced that its 2013 award winners include Tony Kouzarides, awarded the Novartis Medal and Prize while Sir Tom Blundell receives the Biochemical Society Award. George Salmond was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Alfonso Martinez Arias was awarded the Waddington Medal by the British Society of Developmental Biology. Together with other colleagues in the University, Tony Kouzarides was made a Fellow of the Royal Society while Kevin Brindle was made a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences. Timothy Clutton-Brock was awarded the Royal Society Darwin Medal and Claire Spottiswoode received a L'Oreal-Unesco UK and Ireland Fellowship for Women in Science. More recently Barry Everitt was awarded the British Association for Psychopharmacology Lifetime Achievement Award and Sir David Baulcombe received the Balzan Prize for epigenetics. The Royal College of Pathologists awarded its Gold Research Medal to Katherine Hughes.

Continuing with 2013, Eric Miska has been awarded the British Society for Cell Biology Hooke Medal, Ming Du has been awarded the Goudie lecture and medal by the Pathological Society and Robin Irvine has received the Van Deenen medal from the Institute of Biomembranes in Utrecht. George Salmond has been elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology while Jennifer Nichols was one of twelve women honoured for their outstanding contributions to science at Suffrage Science: 2013.