Prof Ley lines up another
major prize
SCI Messel Medal winner
Prof Steven V Ley
 Steven
V Ley, BP (1702)*, Professor of Organic Chemistry at Cambridge
University, was awarded SCI’s Messel Medal and gave an
acceptance address entitled ‘Evolution or Revolution:
The Challenge to Today’s Synthesis Chemist’ during
the Annual Meeting Day on 7 July 2004 at SCI’s London Headquarters.
The Messel Medal is given to someone of high international
distinction in the fields of science, literature, industry
or public affairs every two years. Prof Ley’s research
involves the discovery and development of new synthetic methods
and their application to biologically active systems. His
group has published extensively on the synthesis of natural
products and, to date, more than 100 target compounds have
been synthesised and over 530 papers published. The group
is developing new strategies for combinatorial chemistry using
polymer-supported reagents.
Prof Ley studied for his PhD at Loughborough University,
UK, and then carried out post-doctoral work in the US at Ohio
State University. In 1974 he returned to the UK to continue
post-doctoral studies at Imperial College, London, UK, with
Sir Derek Barton. He was appointed to the staff at Imperial
College in 1975, made Professor in 1983 and then Head of Department
in 1989, before moving to Cambridge in 1992. He has been awarded
26 major international prizes.
Prof Ley sits on many national and international boards,
among which are the UK Chemistry Leadership Council and the
EPSRC International Review of Chemistry. He is presently the
Chairman of the Novartis Foundation Executive Committee and
is a past President of the Royal Society of Chemistry.
* The chair that Prof Ley holds was first formed in 1702
and is one of the earliest professorships to be set up in
the UK. BP endowed it a few years before Prof Ley went to
Cambridge hence ‘BP (1702)’ is added to his title.
|
