Rate My Professor Jason Micklefield

Professor Jason Micklefield is Professor of Chemical Biology in the Department of Chemistry at Imperial College London, having relocated his laboratory from the University of Manchester in 2024, where he served since 1998 and was promoted to full professor in 2008. Within the field of Chemistry, his work centers on Chemical Biology at the interface of chemistry and biology. He obtained his PhD in Chemistry from the University of Cambridge in 1993, working with Professor Sir Alan R. Battersby on the first total synthesis of haem d1. Following this, he held a NATO postdoctoral fellowship from 1993 to 1995 at the University of Washington, USA, with Professor Heinz G. Floss, investigating biosynthetic pathways and enzyme mechanisms. He launched his independent career in 1995 as Lecturer in Organic Chemistry at Birkbeck College, University of London.

Micklefield's research encompasses the discovery, characterization, and engineering of biosynthetic pathways to produce novel bioactive natural products, especially antibiotics addressing antimicrobial resistance and neglected diseases. He also develops biocatalytic processes and integrated chemo-biocatalysis for sustainable pharmaceutical synthesis, alongside nucleic acid chemistry for therapeutics and functional tools such as riboswitches and aptamers. Notable publications include 'Discovery, Characterisation and Engineering of Ligases for Amide Synthesis' (Nature, 2021), 'Merging Enzymes with Chemocatalysis for Sustainable Amide Bond Synthesis' (Nature Communications, 2022), 'Cryptic enzymatic assembly of peptides armed with β-lactone warheads' (Nature Chemical Biology, 2024), 'A vitamin K-dependent carboxylase is involved in antibiotic biosynthesis' (Nature Catalysis, 2018), and 'Integrated Catalysis Opens New Arylation Pathways via Regiodivergent Enzymatic C-H Activation' (Nature Communications, 2016). His contributions have earned him the Royal Society of Chemistry Interdisciplinary Prize (2022), Bader Award (2019), Horizon Prize – The Rita and John Cornforth Award (2023), and Natural Product Reports Lecture Award (2008). He has co-directed the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Integrated Catalysis and directed the BBSRC Natural Product Discovery and Bioengineering Network, leading a diverse research group of over 100 members.