The 2023 Industry & Academic Collaboration Award will be presented to Dr Jacob Bush. Jacob is a Director in the Chemical Biology department at GSK. After completing a degree in chemistry from the University of Oxford, Jake studied for a DPhil in chemical biology in the lab of Chris Schofield. With an interest for translational science, he joined GSK in 2015 to explore ways to accelerate drug discovery. By combining chemoproteomic and chemogenomic approaches using reactive fragments, Jake and his team aim to discover new targets with therapeutic potential and use machine learning algorithms to accelerate the drug discovery process.

Jacob said: “I am delighted to receive this award as it recognises cutting edge work by a team of outstanding scientists both at GSK and at our academic partner institutions. It is a privilege to work with a diverse and energised team to build chemical biology approaches that have the potential to transform biomedical research and accelerate the discovery medicines for patients.”

The 2020 Industry and Academic Collaboration Award was presented to Professor Matthew Dalby of University of Glasgow, UK.

Matthew obtained his PhD at Queen Mary, University of London on osteoblast response to bioactive composites. After becoming interested in the effects of topography on cell function, he moved to Glasgow in 2000 to work for Adam Curtis, Chris Wilkinson and Mathis Riehle. He secured a BBSRC David Phillips Fellowship to explore mesenchymal stem cell response to nanotopography. In 2014 he became Professor of Cell Engineering at the University of Glasgow and diversified his research to include understanding of cells with protein nanonetworks / ultra-low dose growth factor delivery which recently resulted in a first veterinary trial in a dog where a large bone defect in the front leg was fully regenerated and is now functional and load-bearing. With collaborators, Matthew has developed a nanovibrational bioreactor, the Nanokick, that can be used to drive three dimensional bone formation with no need for material or chemical inducement. More recently, he led a successful bid for an EPSRC-SFI Centre for Doctoral Training where a lot of industrial support was achieved. The CDT aims to build a community of interdisciplinary scientists to develop UK standing in development of humanised 3D tissues to reduce animal experimentation in drug discovery. Matthew has been elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. 

Matthew said: “I was very surprised, but clearly delighted to receive news of winning this award. Over the last few years much of my effort has focused on engaging UK industry to form a community to support development of PhD students into diverse careers. This award makes all this effort feel very worthwhile.”

Matthew presented his Award lecture on Thursday 4 June 2020 during the ‘ELRIG-Biochemical Society webinar: Cellular Therapy’.

The 2019 Industry and Academic Collaboration Award was awarded to Maddy Parsons from King’s College London, UK. Maddy’s research is focused on using a range of live-cell advanced imaging approaches to enable precise spatio-temporal dissection of receptor and cytoskeletal signalling. A key focus of this research is in the development and implementation of novel microscopy approaches and FRET-based biosensors to study cell adhesion and migration signalling in 2D and 3D environments. Maddy has established collaborations with clinicians to uncover novel molecular mechanisms underpinning diseases such as skin blistering, cancer, wound healing and inflammation. She also heads a number of multi-disciplinary projects with physicists and biophysicists to develop new methods to define spatio-temporal signalling events in living cells, tissues and organisms. As a result of her interest and applications of advanced microscopy, Maddy has developed strong working partnerships with a broad range of industrial collaborators, including Nikon, which led to the establishment of the state-of-the-art, world-class Nikon Imaging Centre at King’s College London of which she is Director. She also currently works alongside a number of other biotech and pharmaceutical companies to develop and apply advanced imaging approaches to understand basic mechanisms that underpin drug discovery and therapeutic development.

Read Maddy's article published in Biochemical Journal - Regulation of cell migration by α4 and α9 integrins. 

Of winning the Industry and Academic Collaboration Award, Maddy said: “I am absolutely delighted to receive the 2019 Biochemical Society Industry and Academic Collaboration Award. I am really passionate about Interdisciplinary collaboration, which makes this honour particularly special for me. This award is really shared with all the highly talented and innovative academic and industrial collaborators that I have been privileged enough to work with”.

Maddy presented her award lecture at the Biochemical Society conference ‘Cell Signaling and Intracellular Trafficking in Cancer Biology: Interplay, Targeting and Therapy‘ on 21-24 October 2019 in Turin, Italy. 

The inaugural Industry and Academic Collaboration Award was awarded in 2018 to Stefan Knapp from the Institute of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, the Buchmann Institute for Molecular Life Sciences at Frankfurt University as well as at the Structural Genomics Consortium at Oxford University. His research team made a major contribution to the understanding of structural mechanisms regulating signalling molecules such as protein kinases, phosphatases, acetylation dependent reader domains of the bromodomain family and the exploitation of this knowledge for the development of highly specific inhibitors. In the framework of a large collaborative network involving many academic research groups and industry he pioneered the development of protein interaction inhibitors targeting bromodomains that function as lysine acetylation dependent reader domains of the epigenetic code as well as highly specific allosteric inhibitors modulating kinase function. 

Of winning the Industry and Academic Collaboration Award, Stefan said “I am extremely honoured and delighted to receive the 2018 Biochemical Society Industry and Academic Collaboration Award. I would like to use this opportunity to thank the outstanding team of scientists in academia and industry that I had the privilege collaborating with.”

Stefan presented his award lecture on 10 December 2018 at the University of Sussex.

Read Stefan's article published in the Biochemical Journal - Lessons from LIMK1 enzymology and their impact on inhibitor design