Professor Phil Gale receives prestigious Chemistry award

The International Izatt-Christensen award has been awarded annually since 1991 and was awarded in July this year at the International Symposium on Macrocyclic and Supramolecular Chemistry held in Québec City, Canada.

Two of the former winners of this award are Professor Sir J. Fraser Stoddart and Professor Jean-Pierre Sauvage who were awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their work in this area.

Supramolecular Chemistry has been described as 'chemistry beyond the molecule' and concerns the use of weak interactions between specially designed molecules and other molecules or ions to perform particular functions such as molecular recognition or self-assembly.

Professor Gale’s research concerns the design of molecules that can recognise ions that carry a negative charge such as chloride or bicarbonate, and transport them across cell membranes. This work has potential future use in the treatment of diseases that are caused by faulty anion transport such as cystic fibrosis as well as in the treatment of cancer.