Winner: 2023 CBBG Lectureship Award
Andrew Jamieson
University of Glasgow
For his outstanding contribution to the chemical biology community and his exceptional research achievements on the design and syntheses of peptides and peptidomimetics for chemical biology applications.
Andrew received the award for his outstanding contribution to the chemical biology community and his exceptional research achievements on the design and syntheses of peptides and peptidomimetics for chemical biology applications.
He has also been dedicated to supporting young researchers and ensuring equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) within the scientific community. He actively supports these values as a member of the RSC Award Nomination Equality and Diversity Working Group.
He will be presented with the award at the 20th RSC Chemical Biology and Bioorganic Group Firbush Conference in September 2024.
Throughout his career, Andrew has been an ardent supporter of the 浪花直播 (RSC). He was an active RSC CBBG committee member for six years and was elected Chair from 2017 to 2020, where his leadership resulted in significant growth of the committee fostering greater vibrancy, enthusiasm and engagement. He was also an invited Committee Member of the RSC Organic Division and in recognition of his valuable contributions, was elected to the RSC Organic 浪花直播 Community Council in 2023.
Beyond the RSC he was a member of the Society for Chemical Industry Young Chemists' Panel (YCP) (2010 to 2016), actively engaging in initiatives relevant to young chemists. Andrew has played a significant role in shaping the UK Chemical Biology research agenda through his extensive work on EPSRC panels and participation in community workshops. He has been a prolific meeting organiser including co-chairing four RSC CBBG Firbush conferences, RSC CBBG Postgraduate meetings in Leicester and Glasgow as well as the Chemical Biology Meets Drug Discovery conference in 2018, and the Society of Chemical Industry YCP symposium on Epigenetics in 2017.
Andrew鈥檚 research in peptides and peptidomimetics for chemical biology is highly collaborative. This multidisciplinary area requires creativity, drive and a critical eye for detail. His work has multiple lines of investigation. This has included synthetic methods to generate nonproteinogenic amino acids (J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2009, 131, 7917, Org. Lett., 2019, 21, 3178).
He has developed histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors resulting in significant insight into HDAC substrate recognition and HDAC recruitment to corepressor complexes including for example the mechanism of activation of class I HDAC complexes (Nat. Commun., 2016, 7, 11262途 Cell Rep., 2020, 30, 2699).
Using this knowledge of HDAC biochemistry, his group developed novel HDAC substrate inhibitors using Fmoc amino acids incorporating zinc binding groups. (Org. Lett., 2019, 21, 3178途 ACS Chem. Bio., 2022, 17, 2572). Andrew鈥檚 research has contributed extensively to the field of constrained peptides reporting one of the first examples of a stapled protein: a stapled TPX2 proteomimetic was demonstrated to have enhanced binding affinity for AuroraA kinase through molecular interactions not observed in the native protein-protein interaction (ACS Chem. Bio., 2016, 11, 3383).
He has also developed constrained 渭-conotoxins that block human voltage gated sodium channels (Pep. Sci., 2021, 113, e24203) and most recently introduced bifunctional, Raman active diyne鈥恎irder stapled 伪鈥恏elical peptides (Eur. J. Chem., 2023, e202300855).
Excitingly, the Jamieson group has contributed broadly to collaborative research which unveiled and validated a new malarial drug target (e.g. Science, 2019, 365, eaau1682) and is pursuing translation opportunities this presents through his spin-out company Keltic Pharma Therapeutics, where Andrew acts as chief scientific officer.