Fellow

Professor Steven Ley is Professor of Organic Chemistry and Novartis Research Fellow in Cambridge. He is distinguished for his many contributions to the discovery and invention of new reagents and tools in organic and medicinal chemistry, and their application in pharmaceutical and medical science. His stature as one of the world’s leading synthetic organic chemists is evidenced by his array of prizes and honours, including the Royal Society’s Davy Medal, and his Presidency of the Royal Society of Chemistry. His pioneering work on tetrapropylammonium perruthenate, a catalytic oxidant which is now sold commercially, and his recent development of polyurea-encapsulated catalysts, which are used worldwide in academic research and in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, have had a major impact. His innovative syntheses of over 100 complex natural products, with a vast range of biological activities, is a most impressive achievement. His group are world leaders in development of immobilised reagents and scavengers and have pioneered their use in multi-step synthesis of chemical libraries, drug substances and complex natural products. This work has challenged the current accepted dogma of making compounds on solid supports and has provided practical solutions, especially in clean compound preparation and scale up. Professor Ley’s revolutionary approach has been very widely adopted by medicinal chemists internationally. He has led development of focused microwave technology for the rapid production of chemical libraries, especially in combinatorial chemistry programmes. His group has also contributed significantly to application of biotransformations in organic synthesis. He is an outstanding chemist who has had a major impact on biomedicine.