Doctoral advisor Richard Perham | Academic advisor Richard Perham | |
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Born Nigel Shaun Scrutton
April 2, 1964 (age 52)
Batley, West Yorkshire ( 1964-04-02 ) Thesis Mechanistic and structural studies on glutathione reductase by protein engineering (1988) Doctoral students Björn Adalbjörnsson
Andrew Guerriero
Victoria Hare
Martyn Hulley
Xiao Lou
Martyn Peers
Henry Russell Notable awards FRSC
FRSB
Colworth Medal (1999)
Charmian Medal (2002)
Cornforth Award (2009) Alma maters St John's College, Cambridge (PhD), King's College London (BSc), University of Cambridge (ScD) Notable students Andrew Guerriero, Björn Adalbjörnsson, Martyn Hulley, Victoria Hare, Martyn Peers Institutions University of Manchester, University of Leicester, University of Cambridge | ||
Quantum biology current status and opportunities nigel scrutton keynote
Nigel Shaun Scrutton (born 2 April 1964) FRSB FRSC is a British biochemist known for his work on enzyme catalysis and biophysics. He is Director of the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology (MIB), a post he has held since 2010, and Professor of Enzymology and Biophysical Chemistry in the School of Chemistry at the University of Manchester.
Contents
- Quantum biology current status and opportunities nigel scrutton keynote
- Education
- Career and research
- Awards and honours
- References
Education
Scrutton graduated from King's College London with a first class Bachelor of Science degree in Biochemistry in 1985 and completed his PhD at St John's College, Cambridge in 1988. He was a Benefactors' Scholar at St John's College, Cambridge where he completed his doctoral research on glutathione reductase and protein engineering supervised by Richard Perham. He was awarded a Doctor of Science (ScD) degree in 2003 by the University of Cambridge.
Career and research
Following his PhD, Scrutton was appointed as Lecturer (1995), then Reader (1997) and Professor (1999) at the University of Leicester before being appointed Professor at the University of Manchester in 2005. He has held successive research fellowships over 29 years from the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 (1851 Research Fellowship), St John's College, Cambridge, the Royal Society (Royal Society University Research Fellow and Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award), the Lister Institute of Preventive Medicine, the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). He has been Visiting Professor at Tsinghua University (Beijing, China) and Cardiff University (UK).
He has made major contributions to the study of enzyme catalysis, the mechanisms and structures of enzymes and the photochemistry of photoreceptor proteins. His group has pioneered investigations that have led to both deep understanding and recognition of the general importance of quantum tunnelling and protein dynamics in enzyme H-transfer and conformational ensemble sampling in electron transfer reactions. This has involved the development of new biophysical approaches for reaction kinetics analysis including kinetic isotope effect studies, their integration into structural and computational programmes, and extension of theory. He has also made important contributions to enzyme kinetics, protein engineering, directed evolution, synthetic biology, biological engineering, biocatalysis and metabolic engineering, including the first rational redesign of the coenzyme specificity of an enzyme.
His research has been funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council. and the European Union (Framework Programmes for Research and Technological Development). He has supervised about 60 students for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, about 50 postdoctoral research workers and published more than 380 research papers. In 2015 he co-founded the company C3 Biotechnologies Ltd which is commercialising technologies for fuels and chemicals production using synthetic biology.
Awards and honours
Scrutton was awarded the Colworth Medal in 1999 from the Biochemical Society, the Enzyme Chemistry Award (Charmian Medal) from the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2002 and the Rita and John Cornforth Award from the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2009.
Scrutton was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC) in 1996 and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology (FRSB) in 2009.