Winners of the Chris McGuigan Drug Discovery Awards
In the 2023 Chris McGuigan Symposium, three awards were presented to researchers who have excelled in the field of drug discovery. The event took place on 21 September 2023
The McGuigan Outstanding PhD Thesis Award
Recognising the best thesis in drug delivery-related research by a Cardiff University doctoral graduate.
The 2021 winner of this highly competitive prize was won by Dr Nicholas Bullock
After completing undergraduate medical training in Cardiff and an Intercalated BSc at Imperial College London, Dr Nicholas Bullock moved to Bristol to undertake Foundation Training. This two-year programme incorporated a four-month research project exploring RNA splicing in prostate cancer, which sparked a desire to delve deeper into the biology of this complex and heterogeneous disease.
Nicholas then moved back to Wales to undertake basic surgical training, after which he was awarded a Welsh Clinical Academic Training (WCAT) Fellowship, incorporating both higher surgical training in urology and dedicated research time.
In 2018 Nicholas commenced a three-year PhD project, funded by the Urology Foundation, exploring DNA damage repair in advanced prostate cancer. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic causing significant disruption to the research programme and prompting a temporary return to full-time clinical practice, Nicholas was able to identify a promising drug combination with significant efficacy in preclinical models of advanced prostate cancer. Following the completion of the project, he returned to urological training and has continued to undertake research alongside clinical work, developing skills in a range of new and existing approaches, including the evaluation of novel diagnostics and the conduct of clinical trials. He will complete his WCAT Fellowship in the summer of 2025, after which he hopes to obtain a position as a Consultant Urological Surgeon with an active research portfolio exploring the diagnosis and treatment of prostate cancer.
The McGuigan Rising Star Award
Given to an early career researcher who has made a significant, original and internationally recognised impact.
Dr Gilda Padalino of Swansea University won this prestigious award.
Gilda Padalino trained as a medicinal chemist at the University of Salerno (Italy) where she gained her degree (BSc and MSc in Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Technology, part of the Pharmacy Degree) with a final year project on the development of epigenetic inhibitors for prostate cancer treatment.
Her interest in the fascinating field of drug discovery and epigenetics brought her to the United Kingdom in 2015 where she enrolled on a drug discovery PhD project with a particular focus on parasitology. The project was a collaboration between Aberystwyth and Cardiff University, funded by the Life Science Research Network Wales. This interdisciplinary project explored the epigenetic pathway of protein methylation within the blood fluke Schistosoma mansoni. The biological implications of these epigenetic targets and the potential for the identification of a new drug treatment for the neglected tropical disease Schistosomiasis were investigated. She completed her PhD studies in October 2019 with a thesis entitled “Identification of new compounds targeting the Schistosoma mansoni protein methylation machinery”.
Appointed as a Post-Doctoral Research Associate in Aberystwyth University, she continued in drug discovery working on small molecules showing promising activities against other parasitic species (e.g., Fasciola hepatica, Toxoplasma gondii, Ectoparasites and endoparasites and cestodes), against protozoa (e.g., Plasmodium falciparum) and against bacterial species (e.g., Staphylococcus aureus and Enterococcus faecalis).
Since February 2022, she has been working as a Post-Doctoral Research Associate at the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences (Cardiff University) on a project stemming from her PhD research and funded by the Wellcome Trust as part of a wider grant. She focuses on the design, synthesis, and optimisation of novel chemical entities with pharmaceutical activities as anti-schistosomal agents.
Gilda is a chemical biologist and enjoys working in interdisciplinary environments, bridging the gap between the biological underpinnings of a specific research topic and the chemical investigation for drug discovery applications.
The McGuigan Award for Distinguished Work in Drug Discovery
Recognises a senior researcher who has a distinguished international reputation and a proven track record of leadership in initiating or progressing new scientific principles, or translating drug discovery towards the development of human medicines.
The award was given to Professor David Thurston of King's College London for his outstanding career.
David is Emeritus Professor of Drug Discovery at the Institute of Pharmaceutical Science at King’s College London. He has a first degree in pharmacy and a PhD in synthetic medicinal chemistry.
David is one of the scientific co-founders of Spirogen Ltd (acquired by AstraZeneca in 2011), and acted as CSO for the company from its formation in 2000. He is also a co-founder of Transcriptogen Ltd, which focused on the discovery and development of small-molecule transcription factor inhibitors as oncology agents, and Femtogenix Ltd which was involved with the discovery of novel DNA-interactive Antibody-Drug Conjugate (ADC) payloads (becoming Pheon Therapeutics in 2022).
David has published widely in medicinal chemistry/chemistry journals, is author of the textbook “Chemistry and Pharmacology of Anticancer Drugs” and is Editor-in-Chief of the Drug Discovery book series of the Royal Society of Chemistry.
The Chris McGuigan Drug Discovery Awards and Symposium are made possible through a generous donation by Dr Geoff Henson.