Mcbain Medal 2021

Cameron Alexander is Professor of Polymer Therapeutics at the School of Pharmacy, University of Nottingham, UK.
Professor Alexander received degrees (BSc and PhD) in Chemistry from the University of Durham, UK and carried out post-doctoral research at the Melville Laboratory for Polymer Synthesis, University of Cambridge. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and received the UK Macro Group Medal in 2014 for contributions to polymer science. His research focuses on drug, gene and cell delivery for applications in areas ranging from infectious diseases through to cancers and neurodegeneration. This work has been generously funded by research councils, industry and charities.
Professor Alexander has been highly fortunate to work with scientists from more than 20 countries in his research group in the last decade, and the group maintains strong international links despite current restrictions!

Gabriele C. Sosso is an associate professor of computational physical chemistry at the University of Warwick. He earned his PhD in Nanostructures and Nanotechnologies in 2012, at the University of Milano-Bicocca. He held postdoctoral positions in the research groups of Prof. M. Parrinello and A. Michaelides at ETH Zurich and UCL, respectively. His research focuses on atomistic computer simulations of disordered systems and phase transitions, particularly crystal nucleation and growth and the formation of ice in biological matter.

Matt holds a personal chair (Full Professor) in the Department of Chemistry and also the Medical School at the University of Warwick, UK. He is a Royal Society Industry Fellow, Co-Director of the MRC DTP in Interdisciplinary Biomedical Research and co-founder of Cryologyx Ltd. Professor Gibson’s multidisciplinary research group focusses on developing biomaterials to address healthcare challenges. Most recently they have developed new tools for rapid COVID-19 diagnostics and polymers to protect biologics during cold storage.

Rachel O’Reilly is currently a Professor of Chemistry and Head of School at the University of Birmingham. She got her first degree from the University of Cambridge and went on to complete her PhD at Imperial College, London in 2003 with Professor Vernon Gibson. She then moved to the US to under the joint direction of Professors Craig J. Hawker and Karen L. Wooley. In 2006 she took up a Royal Society Fellowship at the University of Cambridge and then in 2009 she moved to the University of Warwick and in 2012 was promoted to full professor. She moved to Birmingham in 2018. Her group undertakes research in the area of catalysis, responsive polymers, nanostructure characterization and DNA nanomaterials. She has published over 200 papers to date and has received a number of awards, including the IUPAC-Samsung young polymer scientist award in 2012, and in 2013 the American Chemical Society Mark Young Polymer Scientist award. In 2017 she was awarded the Macromolecules/Biomacromolecules young investigator award from the ACS in recognition of her innovative research in polymer science and in 2020 the RSC Corday-Morgan Prize. She is an associate editor for JACS and a review editor for Science.