14 August 2007

Major chemistry award for Dundee researcher

Dr Andrei Nikolaev, of the College of Life Sciences at the University of Dundee, has been named the winner of the 2006 Royal Society of Chemistry Award in Carbohydrate Chemistry.

This prestigious award, which is sponsored by Syngenta, has been given to Dr Nikolaev for his innovative syntheses of complex carbohydrates of biological importance, enabling the study of their operation in nature.

Dr Nikolaev will be presented with the award, which comprises a silver medal, certificate and a cheque for £500, at a presentation dinner and ceremony in Birmingham in November.

The Royal Society of Chemistry Award in Carbohydrate Chemistry was founded in 1970 and recognises advances in new synthetic methods for the creation of carbohydrate molecules of biological significance, or in our understanding of how carbohydrates operate in molecular recognition and cell signalling processes.

Dr Nikolaev came to Dundee in 1995 and he currently works as a Reader in Organic Chemistry at the College of Life Sciences. He previously worked within the world-renowned Zelinsky Institute of Organic Chemistry in Moscow for 18 years.

Andrei’s research interests centre on the synthesis of biologically active complex carbohydrates and glycoconjugates and their application for biochemical and immunological studies. His main goal is elaboration of novel chemical methods for the preparation of carbohydrate-containing compounds, which are used as tools to achieve new biological knowledge and to tackle parasite and bacterial diseases.

His work has been recognised with several awards including Diplomas of the Russian Academy of Sciences and a Bronze Medal of all-Soviet Union Scientific Exhibition. He was awarded a Wellcome Trust Visiting Fellowship in 1992-1994 and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Research Scholarship in 1995-2000. Andrei is an editorial board member of Carbohydrate Research. In 2006, he also worked as a Guest Editor of the journal.

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