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Buchanan Medal
Nominations now open
The call for nominations is now open. Please ensure you read through the guidance document fully.
The Royal Society is encouraging nominations of joint collaborations, groups or teams for almost all its medals to better represent how contemporary science is undertaken. In addition, the Society is extremely keen to broaden the diversity of those nominated for its awards, so do please consider all contacts and colleagues.
You do not have to be a Fellow of the Royal Society to nominate or to be nominated for any of the Royal Society medals and awards.
Nominations close on Friday 23 February 2024 at 23:59 GMT.
Buchanan Medallist 2023
Professor Hagan Bayley
The Buchanan Medal 2023 is awarded to Professor Hagan Bayley FRS for helping pioneer the founding Oxford Nanopore Technology, the hugely successful biotech company.
The award
The Buchanan Medal is awarded for distinguished contributions to the biomedical sciences. The award was created from a fund to the memory of the physician George Buchanan FRS (PDF), former Chief Medical Officer of the UK, and was first awarded in 1897. The medal is of silver gilt, is awarded annually and is accompanied by a gift of £2,000.
Eligibility
The Buchanan medal is open to UK/Commonwealth/Republic of Ireland citizens or those who have been residents for three or more years. There are no restrictions on career stage and nominations will remain valid and shall be considered by the award selection committee throughout three nomination cycles. Teams or groups may now be nominated for this award.
Nominations
Nominations are now open.
Past winners
Professor Richard Moxon FMedSci FRS was awarded the 2022 Buchanan Medal for helping pioneer the field of molecular microbiology; discovering contingency loci in bacteria that facilitate rapid evolution under selection and making key contributions to the development of meningitis vaccines.
Professor Anne Ferguson-Smith FMedSci FRS was awarded the 2021 Buchanan Medal for her pioneering work in epigenetics, her interdisciplinary work on genomic imprinting, the interplay between the genome and epigenome, and how genetic and environmental influences affect development and human diseases.
Sir Doug Turnbull FMedSci FRS was awarded the 2020 Buchanan Medal for outstanding contributions to biomedicine particularly in relation to mitochondrial disease, including the development of a method to prevent their transmission.
Professor Gillian Griffiths FMedSci FRS was awarded the 2019 Buchanan Medal for establishing the fundamental cell biological mechanisms that drive cytotoxic T-cell killing, laying the foundations for informed application of cancer immunotherapy.