Jeremy Knowles Award 2009 winner

Awarded for his outstanding applications of protein crystallography in the study of enzyme reaction mechanisms.

About the winner

James Naismith is currently Professor of Chemical Biology at St Andrews University. Jim, born in 1968, graduated with a 1st class honours degree in Chemistry from Edinburgh in 1989. It was lectures given by Steve Chapman that inspired his interest in chemistry of biology.

With a Carnegie scholarship Jim studied in Manchester for a PhD with Bill Hunter but is grateful for lots of help and input from John Helliwell and Dave Garner. During his PhD, Jim learned from Bill the fantastic insights and excitement that structural biology can bring to the study of proteins and their chemistry.

He spent two years in the Dallas, Texas with Steve Sprang as a NATO fellow. In Dallas, Jim learned from a talented mentor how to use modern molecular biology techniques to drive a research program. In 1995 he returned to Scotland and has been at St Andrews ever since. At St Andrews he has always worked at the meeting point (intellectually and physically) of Chemistry and Biology. 

Jim stresses that he has been very lucky throughout this time to have worked with excellent students, technicians and post-docs and it is their insight and hard work that the Jeremy Knowles award recognises. 

Jim's work has focused on three areas, enzyme mechanism, protein structure at the membrane and anything else where structure can provide an insight.

He has been awarded the RSC prizes Carbohydrate Medal, The RSC Corday-Morgan Medal, the Biochemical Society Colworth Medal, The Leverhulme Prize in Biological Science, a BBSRC career development fellowship and was elected to fellowship of The Royal Society of Edinburgh.