Submitted by Penny Peck on Thu, 12/03/2020 - 00:00
Congratulations to Professor Sir John Walker, FRS, Emeritus Director of the MBU and Fellow of Sidney Sussex College.
The University of Cambridge is to award John the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Science honoris causa at a Congregation set to take place in June 2020.
John was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1997 for his work describing how the biological fuel upon which all biological life depends, known as adenosine triphosphate (or ATP), is generated by a molecular turbine.
John's current research is focused on understanding how the human version of this molecular turbine is assembled, and how it is regulated differently in the mitochondria of human cells and in bacteria, with the aim of devising drugs designed to kill antibiotic resistant pathogenic bacteria by stopping their turbines without influencing the human ones.
The Chancellor of the University, currently The Lord Sainsbury of Turville, was set to confer the honorary doctorates at a special Congregation on Wednesday, 17 June 2020, but the ceremony has been postponed due to COVID-19.