Prof Matthew Fuchter appointed Fellow and Tutor in Chemistry at St Peter’s College

St Peter’s College is pleased to announce the appointment of Professor Matthew Fuchter as Fellow and Tutor in Chemistry. He joins the University of Oxford as Professor of Chemistry and Sydney Bailey Fellow and Tutor in Chemistry at St Peter’s College.

Prof Fuchter completed PhD research at Imperial College London under the supervision of Professor A. G. M. Barrett, FRS FMedSci in 2006, and postdoctoral studies at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Australia, where he worked with Professor A. B. Holmes, AC FRS FAA FInstP in 2007. He was then appointed as the RCUK Academic Fellow at the School of Pharmacy (University of London) for one year before taking up a Lectureship at Imperial College London. At Imperial College he was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2012, Reader in 2015 and Professor in 2018.

He said, ‘I feel particularly honoured to be appointed as the Sydney Bailey Fellow, a post which recognises the first Fellow in chemistry at St. Peter’s. Like me, he was an organic chemist, and I hope to continue his legacy in the teaching of organic chemistry, and that of the previous Sydney Bailey Fellow, Professor Mark Moloney.’

Prof Fuchter’s multidisciplinary research group has a broad array of interests in functional molecules, materials and medicines. In fundamental research, his work has significantly contributed to the development of chiral materials for optoelectronic applications and photoswitchable molecules for diverse functional applications. In translational research, he is an inventor of two different drugs (Samuraciclib and APL-4098) undergoing clinical trials for cancer therapy. He is also Founder, Non-Executive Director and Head of Chemistry for NK:IO Ltd, an immune-oncology spinout company.

Earlier this month, the University of Oxford announced it will share in £32.4m funding from the first round of UKRI’s new cross research council responsive mode (CRCRM) pilot scheme. Prof Fuchter will lead one of the two Oxford projects selected for participation in this scheme. His project will focus on developing new methods to realise the remarkable potential of tissue engineering.

Prof Fuchter has been awarded several prizes for his work. These include the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) Harrison-Meldola Memorial Prize (2014), the 2018 Tetrahedron Young Investigator Award for Bioorganic and Medicinal Chemistry, a Blavatnik Award for Young Scientists in the United Kingdom (2020), conferred by the Blavatnik Family Foundation and the New York Academy of Sciences, the RSC Corday-Morgan Prize (2021), the RSC Stephanie L. Kwolek Award (2022), and the RSC BMCS Malcolm Campbell Memorial Prize (2023). He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (since 2015) and the European Academy of Sciences (since 2023).

Learn more about Prof Fuchter’s latest work and publications here.