The University claimed two of the four prizes at the 2009 Nexxus Annual Life Science Awards (West), run by Nexxus, the networking organisation for central Scotland's life scientists. Dr Karen Faulds, of the Department of Pure and Applied Chemistry, received the Young Life Scientist of the Year Award, for her work in finding DNA irregularities which could lead to the detection of diseases and infections. A Lifetime Achievement award went to Professor Howard Stevens, formerly of the Strathclyde Institute of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences, who recently retired after a four-decade career in pharmaceutical science and drug development.

The awards were announced to an audience of prominent scientists and science professionals at Glasgow's Oran Mor on 11 November.

Professor Iain Hunter, Dean of Strathclyde's Faculty of Science, said: "We are immensely proud of Karen and Howard's achievement in earning these awards. They excel in their respective areas of science and are thoroughly deserving winners.

"Karen and Howard work in different departments but they are departments which collaborate closely to broaden the knowledge and range of bioscience. This is a testament to the pre-eminence of multi-disciplinary work at Strathclyde and to the depth and diversity of our science research.

"The awards also illustrate that we have not only some of Scotland's most eminent and experienced life scientists but also a new generation whose talent and innovation will keep the University at the forefront of this field."

Dr Faulds is the second consecutive Strathclyde winner of the Young Life Scientist of the Year Award, following Dr Gail McConnell, who took the title in 2008.

Dr Faulds works in enhancing the sensitivity and multiplexing capabilities of bioanalytical techniques that can detect diseases and infections by the presence of specific DNA sequences. This could contribute to advances in several branches of life and clinical science such as molecular disease diagnostics, drug discovery and testing, and forensics.

Scientists have long used the Polymerase Chain Reaction to find single errors in long strands of DNA which indicate a specific disease. This method makes many copies, so that an error is more obvious and easier to find, but it is also a time-consuming and error-prone process. Dr Faulds is working on methods to try and eliminate these problems- in one approach, she makes the error much more conspicuous, rather than making more copies.

Dr Faulds uses the extremely sensitive detection technique of surface enhanced resonance Raman scattering (SERRS), which can be used to detect single molecules and single base mismatches in DNA. She focuses her research efforts on highlighting the advantages and furthering the capabilities of this method in life science applications, such as diagnosing disease based on a specific gene sequence in an individual’s genome or detecting DNA sequences indicative of a specific organism such as MRSA.

As Dr Faulds researches the capabilities of this method of analysing biological materials, she has achieved many landmarks, including establishing the greater sensitivity limits of SERRS to establish its superiority over existing bioanalytical methods. She was the first to demonstrate that SERRS could be used for the quantitative measurement of DNA and to demonstrate simultaneous detection of up to six different sequences of DNA using this technology.

She is committed to advancing her research along with technology transfer to the commercial market. She is responsible for two patents on SERRS-based novel DNA-detection methods and is a founding member of D3 Technologies Ltd, a spin-out company from the University of Strathclyde founded on the technology she has developed along with her colleagues Professors Ewen Smith and Duncan Graham.

Dr Faulds said: “I am delighted to receive this award - the research done within my group is challenging on so many levels and has a fantastic array of potential applications involving bioanalytical chemistry.  I feel we’re just at the beginning of a scientific journey and are continually forming new, interdisciplinary collaborations, with scientists and clinicians to try and solve difficult problems using the added value of the collective partners.

"The collaborative atmosphere of the team and the University as a whole has allowed me to explore new ideas and encouraged the investigation of ambitious research projects. This award is a reflection of the activity that my group is responsible for and it gives my group and I great pleasure in being recognised in this way." 

Professor Stevens has recently been focusing his work on three areas - scientific research and education, public service to the pharmaceutical sciences sector and the transferring of technology from academia to industry through the development of spin-out businesses.

His association with Strathclyde began in 1988, when he joined the board of a  Strathclyde drug-delivery spin-out, PolySystems Ltd. Although the company was eventually sold to RP Scherer Corporation, Professor Stevens stayed and invented several time-delayed drug delivery systems and a novel ophthalmic drug delivery system called OptidyneTM.

In 1995, he left Scherer to continue his research interests in controlled release drug delivery as the Pfizer Professor of Explorative Drug Delivery at Strathclyde.

Throughout his academic research career, Professor Stevens always kept one foot in industry and has devoted much effort to the commercialisation of research, which has made a significant contribution to the Scottish biotech sector.

At Strathclyde, Professor Stevens has played major roles in the formation and development of three successful biotech spin-out businesses- Bio-Images Research Ltd,  CrystallografX Ltd and XstalBio Ltd. He plans to launch another, Tempus Pharmaceuticals, in 2010, after receiving a Scottish Enterprise Proof of Concept award in relation to his current project focusing on oral drug delivery technology.

As Assistant Head of the Strathclyde Institute of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences, Professor Stevens has been tireless as an educator and public servant. Of 17 students he has assisted in completion of their doctoral degrees, four now work in academia and 13 in the international pharmaceutical industry.

Professor Stevens serves on government committees involved in the regulatory approval of medicines and broader professional matters, including the Academy of Pharmaceutical Sciences of Great Britain. He is a Fellow of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain and of the Royal Society of Chemistry. He is also named as inventor on 20 drug delivery patents. 

Professor Stevens is currently overseas and was unable to receive his award in person but it was accepted on his behalf by his brother, Malcolm, an Emeritus Professor at the University of Nottingham's School of Pharmacy.

Professor Stevens said: "It is an enormous privilege to have spent a lifetime working in the pharmaceutical sciences, firstly in industry and then more recently, in academia.  Those of us working in this field sometimes have the opportunity of improving the nation's health and if I have had the good fortune to have made a small contribution to this end, then I can ask for no more.

"I feel humbled in receiving this Award as I have been surrounded by many very talented colleagues, both young and old, and this Award should properly be shared amongst the many and not given to only one.”

The Strathclyde Institute of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences is currently the subject of an £8 million fundraising campaign for a £36 million new building to expand and enhance its work in developing new medicines for diseases including heart disease, cancer, infectious diseases and schizophrenia.