Chris Dobson’s research activities were primarily concerned with defining the fundamental origin of neurodegenerative disorders, such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases. His main objective was to identify new strategies for their prevention or treatment.
He was the John Humphrey Plummer Professor of Chemical and Structural Biology at the University of Cambridge, and Master of St John’s College. He was an undergraduate, graduate student and Research Fellow at the University of Oxford. He became an Assistant Professor of Chemistry at Harvard University before returning to Oxford, where he was a Professor of Chemistry until moving to Cambridge in 2001.
Chris was a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, and a Foreign Associate of the US National Academy of Sciences. Amongst the awards he received were the Davy and Royal medals of the Royal Society, the 2014 Heineken Prize for Biochemistry and Biophysics from the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the 2014 Feltrinelli International Prize for Medicine from the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei in Italy.
Sir Christopher Dobson FMedSci FRS died on 8 September 2019.
Subject groups
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Chemistry
Chemistry, biological
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Health and Human Sciences
Molecular medicine
Awards
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Davy Medal
For his work on the application of NMR and other structural methods for studying protein folding and misfolding, especially the formation of amyloid fibrils, leading to novel insights on protein structure and folding.
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Royal Medal
For his outstanding contributions to the understanding of the mechanisms of protein folding and mis-folding, and the implications for disease.
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Bakerian Medal and Lecture
On 'Protein folding and misfolding: from theory to therapy'.
