Professors Alan F Fairlamb and Jeffrey Williams, two top scientists who both head research divisions within the Wellcome Trust Biocentre in the School of Life Sciences at the University of Dundee, have been elected Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE), Scotland's National Academy.
After 8 years at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Professor Fairlamb was awarded a prestigious Wellcome Trust Research Fellowship to come to Dundee, with his American wife Carolyn and his family to become Professor of Biochemistry in 1996. Professor Fairlamb's group is dedicated to the development of better treatments for tropical parasitic diseases through a comparative study of the biochemistry and molecular biology of parasites and their hosts. Professor Fairlamb is known for his discovery of trypanothione which represents an extremely promising area for developing new drugs.
Professor Williams, also a Wellcome Trust Research Fellow, was appointed to a Chair in Developmental Biology in 1998 in the Division of Cell and Developmental Biology at Dundee after 23 years in London, first at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund then at University College, London. He is a molecular biologist, studying a soil-living organism that provides a simple model for the development of animal embryos. Professor Williams' wife, Dr Natalia Zhukovskaya, is also a scientist working at the Wellcome Trust Biocentre with Professor Williams.
The Royal Society of Edinburgh is one of Europe's oldest multidisciplinary societies, founded over 200 years ago. Election to fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh honours outstanding achievement across all academic subjects, the professions, the arts, commerce, industry and public life. The Society is Scotland's foremost learned society and Scotland's National Academy of Science & Letters. Its purpose, laid down in the RSE's Royal Charter of 1783, is and remains the advancement of learning and useful knowledge, both by supporting research and by disseminating knowledge to the public.ENDS
For further information contact:
School of Life Sciences Publicity Officer Angela Nicoll 01382 345072
or Stuart Brown at The Royal Society of Edinburgh: 0131 240 5000
www.royalsoced.org.uk