After fifteen years as Director of this Unit, John Walker has stepped down from this role. Known originally as the MRC Dunn Human Nutrition Unit, it was renamed the MRC Mitochondrial Biology Unit in 2009. John will continue to pursue his research interests at the MBU.

I am delighted to announce that Judy Hirst has been awarded the 2012 Norman Heatley Award by the Royal Society of Chemistry.

The Norman Heatley Award is to recognise and promote the importance of inter- and multi-disciplinary research between chemistry and the life sciences through independent work.

During World War II, Norman Heatley was a member of the team of scientists at Oxford University led by Howard Florey and Ernst Chain who isolated penicillin, determined its chemical structures and demonstrated its clinical use for combatting bacterial infections.

The Biochemical Society has announced that the 2011 Keilin Memorial Lecture  will be given by John Walker. He will receive the Keilin Medal and a prize of £2000.

The Keilin Memorial Lecture was instituted in 1964 to commemorate the late David Keilin, a Cambridge biochemist, who made outstanding contributions to research on cytochromes. It is given every two years by a scientist who has contributed to scientific knowledge in a field related to Keilin's interests.

John Walker has received the Ahmed Zewail Gold Medal from Wayne State University, Detroit, USA. Previous recipients are Roger Kornberg and John Meurig Thomas.