Congratulations to the 2022 Prize Winners in the organic chemistry community

Through its prizes programme, our Organic Division celebrates the individuals and teams from industry and academic across all career stages who contribute to the advances in organic chemistry as well as recognising the novel discoveries in the field of organic chemistry.

Winners are selected by the Organic Division Awards Committee, chaired by the Organic Division President.

Members of our Organic Division are recognised throughout the whole RSC Prize portfolio, congratulations to all the 2022 Prize Winners. 

Click on the links to find more about our 2022 winners and join in the digital celebration.

Congratulations to the Organic Division Research & Innovation Prize winners:

Organic Division Early Career Award:

Hickinbottom Award winner Dr Louis Morrill (Cardiff University) for the development of sustainable methodologies for synthesis which employ catalysts that are metal-free or based on earth-abundant first row transition metals.

Organic Division Mid-Career Award:

Merck, Sharp & Dohme Award winner Dr Katherine Wheelhouse (GlaxoSmithKline) for contributions to the application and industrialisation of chemical catalysis in the pharmaceutical industry in the pursuit of more sustainable synthesis of medicines.

Organic Division Open Award:

Pedler Award winner Professor Dame Margaret Brimble (University of Auckland) for a large body of pioneering work spanning the fields of natural product synthesis, peptide chemistry, and medicinal chemistry.

Bader Award Winner:

Professor Ross Denton (University of Nottingham) for the development of novel synthesis methods and catalysts based on organophosphorus and organosilicon chemistry, and their application in the synthesis of pharmaceuticals and natural products.

Congratulations to the 2022 Organic Division Horizon Prize winners:

Robert Robinson Award in Synthetic Organic Chemistry Winner:

Team P(V) (Bristol-Myers Squibb and the Scripps Research Institute) for the discovery of a sustainable and scalable platform of P(V) reagents for the synthesis of stereodefined and variable phosphate chimeric oligonucleotides, and their application to phosphorylation, bioconjugation, and chiral phosphine synthesis.

Congratulations also to RSC Prize winners from across the organic community, including:

The Sign Language Incorporation in Chemistry Education (SLICE) team (United States Rochester Institute of Technology), for pioneering and disseminating an innovative sign language lexicon to facilitate the learning of organic chemistry by d/Deaf and hard of hearing students.

Professor K. Barry Sharpless (Scripps Research), winner of the Sir Derek Barton Gold Medal for the development of the concept of ‘click’ chemistry, the invention of chemical reactions underpinning this field and the impact this continues to make in chemical biology, drug development and materials science.

Professor Timothy Donohoe (University of Oxford), winner of the Tilden Prize for innovative development of catalytic methods that activate organic molecules by redox processes.

Professor Jason Micklefield (University of Manchester), winner of the Interdisciplinary Prize for innovative research spanning organic chemistry to molecular genetics, leading to the discovery, characterisation, and engineering of many novel enzymes.

Professor Rebecca Goss (University of St Andrews), winner of the Corday-Morgan Prize for pioneering the use of enzymatic halogenation/cross-coupling in C‒H activation.

Professor Andrew Dove (University of Birmingham), winner of the Corday-Morgan Prize for seminal contributions to controlling and understanding stereochemistry and degradation in polymeric materials.

Dr Paul McGonigal (Durham University), winner of the Harrison-Meldola Memorial Prize for innovative studies of dynamic processes in organic functional materials.

Professor Alison Hulme (University of Edinburgh), winner of the Award for Exceptional Service for outstanding service to the Royal Society of Chemistry and the organic chemistry community through our member communities and governance groups.

Dr Susannah Coote (Lancaster University and RSC Heterocyclic and Synthesis Group), winner of the Inspirational Member Award for dedication to supporting the early career heterocyclic chemistry community through the development of a programme of online activities in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.