10 July 2008

Royal Medal crowns annus mirabilis for Dundee scientist

Sir Philip Cohen, Director of the Medical Research Council’s Protein Phosphorylation Unit, Research Professor at the University of Dundee, and Director-Designate of the newly established Scottish Institute for Cell Signalling, has been awarded the Royal Society’s prestigious Royal Medal, it was announced today (Thursday 10 July).

Professor Cohen is the fourth scientist in his Unit to receive an eminent award since the start of the year, making 2008 a particularly special year both for the individual recipients and the Unit as a whole.

The Royal Medal is awarded annually in recognition of the profound implications an individual’s research findings have for others, and has been granted this year to Professor Cohen for his contribution to our understanding of the role of protein phosphorylation in cell regulation. Protein phosphorylation is a control mechanism in cells, and abnormalities in the mechanism are a cause or consequence of many serious conditions including cancer, diabetes and inflammatory disease.

On hearing of his award, Professor Cohen said: "I am delighted to have received this honour which is only awarded to one scientist in the UK biological sciences community each year. Coming so soon after my recent election to the US National Academy of Sciences, this has been quite a year for the MRC Protein Phosphorylation Unit at Dundee - Dario Alessi was elected a Fellow of The Royal Society, John Rouse received the Colworth Medal of the Biochemical Society and Kei Sakamoto was honoured with the Young Investigator Award of the American Physiological Society."

Professor Cohen has been honoured 37 times during his career, and his honours include degrees, fellowships, awards and medals. In the last three years alone, Professor Cohen has received the Queen’s Anniversary Award for Higher Education, the Rolf Luft Prize (Sweden) and the Debrecen Award for Molecular Medicine (Hungary), and next year he will receive the Achievement Award of the Society for Biomolecular Sciences.

Only three Royal Medals are awarded each year, for the most important contributions to the advancement of natural knowledge: one in the physical sciences, one in biological sciences, and the third in applied sciences. The Nobel prize winners Frederick Sanger, Max Perutz and Francis Crick, among others, have all received Royal Medals during the medal's rich history.

Notes for Editors

About Professor Philip Cohen
Philip Cohen has been a Royal Society Research Professor since 1984, Director of the Medical Research Council Protein Phosphorylation Unit since its inception in 1990, and is the Honorary President of the British Biochemical Society from 2006-2008. Philip is also the founder and Co-Director of the Division of Signal Transduction Therapy (DSTT) the UK’s largest collaboration between a basic research institution and the pharmaceutical industry.

For the past 40 years, Philip’s research has been devoted to studying the role of protein phosphorylation in cell regulation and human disease, a process that controls almost all aspects of cell life. Currently his laboratory is working on the cellular pathways involved in inflammation, research that is aimed at understanding how the uncontrolled production of substances in cells can cause chronic inflammatory diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, asthma and septic shock.

Interviews
To arrange an interview with Professor Cohen, please call the MRC Protein Phosphorylation Unit on 01382 388058 or 01382 384238.

Photographs
Electronic images of Professor Cohen are available from Karen Pope, MRC Protein Phosphorylation Unit (k.pope@dundee.ac.uk)

The Royal Society
The Royal Society is the UK’s independent academy for science. Its Royal Medals are awarded in recognition of the profound implications recipients’ research findings have had for others working in their fields. The Royal Society is the world’s oldest scientific academy, founded in 1660 by King Charles II. The Royal Medal will be presented at the Royal Society’s Anniversary Day meeting on Monday 1 December.

The Medical Research Council Protein Phosphorylation Unit aims to advance our understanding of the role of protein phosphorylation (a control mechanism that regulates most aspects of cell life) in cell regulation and human disease to facilitate the development of drugs to treat diseases caused by abnormalities in this process. (www.ppu.mrc.ac.uk)

The Medical Research Council is dedicated to improving human health through excellent science. It invests on behalf of the UK taxpayer. Its work ranges from molecular level science to public health research, carried out in universities, hospitals and a network of its own units and institutes. The MRC liaises with the Health Departments, the National Health Service and industry to take account of the public’s needs. The results have led to some of the most significant discoveries in medical science and benefited the health and wealth of millions of people in the UK and around the world. (www.mrc.ac.uk)

The University of Dundee is an internationally recognised centre of excellence in life sciences and medical research with exceptional strengths in cancer, diabetes and tropical diseases. The College of Life Sciences at Dundee, in which the Medical Research Council Protein Phosphorylation Unit is embedded, received the highest 5* rating for its research at the last UK Research Assessment Exercise. (www.dundee.ac.uk)

For media enquiries contact:
Roddy Isles
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University of Dundee
Nethergate Dundee, DD1 4HN
TEL: 01382 384910
E-MAIL: r.isles@dundee.ac.uk