1 June 2006

C.A. Wright Memorial Medal for Outstanding Contribution

Professor Michael Ferguson, of the School of Life Sciences at the University of Dundee, has been awarded the prestigious C.A. Wright Memorial Medal from the British Society for Parasitology, in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the discipline of parasitology.

Professor Ferguson is a world authority on tropical parasitic diseases. His research takes a multi-disciplinary approach to understanding the biochemistry of the parasites behind tropical diseases such as African Sleeping Sickness, Chagas’ disease, leishmanisis and malaria, with the ultimate aim of finding potential drugs to treat them. These diseases are among the most neglected in the world, affecting millions of the world's poorest people and attracting little or no interest from pharmaceutical companies.

Professor Ferguson came to Dundee in 1988 and was promoted to a Personal Chair in Molecular Parasitology in 1994. He is a Principal Investigator in the Division of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Microbiology, Deputy Head of the School of Life Sciences and co-Director of the Postgenomics and Molecular Interactions Centre. He has published over 200 peer-reviewed papers and has given many invited lectures world wide.

Most recently Professor Ferguson has been instrumental in securing £8.1 million from The Wellcome Trust for the establishment of the newly-opened Drug Discovery Unit, based within the £20 million Centre for Interdisciplinary Research at the University. The Unit aims to translate basic research discoveries into candidate drugs ready for clinical trials, using compound screening and medicinal chemistry more usually found in an industry setting.

Professor Hilary Hurd, President of the British Society for Parasitology, said "We are delighted to award the 2006 CA Wright Medal to such a well respected parasitologist. It is particularly appropriate that the award is made to a scientist from a Scottish research group in the year that we are privileged to host the International Congress of Parasitology in Scotland.” The medal will be presented to Professor Ferguson at the 11th International Congress of Parasitology in Glasgow in August."

Professor Ferguson’s research activities have been acknowledged with a number of awards including the 1991 Colworth Medal of the British Biochemical Society, the 1996 Makdougall Brisbane Prize of The Royal Society of Edinburgh and the 1999 International Glycoconjugate Organisation Award. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (1994) and of the Royal Society of London (2000) and made a member of the European Molecular Biology Organisation in 1999.

A picture of Professor Ferguson is available from the University press office.

Notes to Editors:

* Dundee boasts one of the leading research divisions in Europe studying African sleeping sickness, Chagas' disease, Leishmaniasis and malaria, based in the Division of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Microbiology in the Wellcome Trust Biocentre. This research has been boosted by the creation of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research (CIR). The CIR houses the purpose-built Drug Discovery Unit, which offers world-class facilities in medicinal and synthetic organic chemistry, computational chemistry and compound screening laboratories, aimed at developing new, safer and more effective drug therapies for the treatment of global parasitic diseases as well as new treatments for diabetes, cancer and inflammatory diseases.

* The British Society for Parasitology was launched in 1962 from the parasitological section of the Institute of Biology, and included overseas researchers amongst its founding members. The membership of the BSP now stands at around 1000 with approximately 300 from overseas. The Society was incorporated as a charitable company in 1998.

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