Alan Fersht


Sir Alan Roy Fersht is an English chemist at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology and an Emeritus Professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Cambridge. He works on protein folding. Former Master of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge.

Early life and education

Fersht was born on 21 April 1943 in Hackney, London. He was educated at Sir George Monoux Grammar School, an all-boys grammar school in Walthamstow, London. He went on to study at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where he was awarded his PhD degree in 1968.

Career and research

Fersht was Wolfson Research Professor of the Royal Society and Professor of Biological Chemistry at Imperial College London from 1978 to 1988 and was Herchel Smith Professor of Organic Chemistry at Cambridge from 1988 to 2010. He was the Director of the Cambridge Centre for Protein Engineering from 1990 to 2010. He is a Fellow of both Gonville & Caius College and Imperial College.
Alan Fersht is widely regarded as one of the main pioneers of protein engineering, which he developed as a primary method for analysis of the structure, activity and folding of proteins. He has developed methods for the resolution of protein folding in the sub-millisecond time-scale and has pioneered the method of phi value analysis for studying the folding transition states of proteins. His interests also include protein misfolding, disease and cancer.

Selected publications

  • Structure and Mechanism in Protein Science: A Guide to Enzyme Catalysis and Protein Folding
  • The Selected Papers of Sir Alan Fersht: Development of Protein Engineering

    Awards and honours

Fersht was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1983. The Royal Society awarded him the Gabor Medal in 1991 for molecular biology, in 1998 the Davy Medal for chemistry and in 2008 the Royal Medal. He is a Foreign Associate of the United States National Academy of Sciences, a Foreign Member of the American Philosophical Society, a Foreign Member of the Accademia dei Lincei, an Honorary Foreign Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences. His nomination for the Royal Society reads:
Fersht holds an honorary doctorate from Uppsala University.
Fersht has received many prizes and medals including: the FEBS Anniversary Prize; Novo Biotechnology Award; Charmian Medal of the Royal Society of Chemistry; Max Tishler Lecture and Prize Harvard University; The Datta Lectureship and Medal of the Federation of European Biochemical Societies; Jubilee Lecture and the Harden Medal of the Biochemical Society; Feldberg Foundation Prize, Distinguished Service Award, Miami Nature Biotechnology Winter Symposium; Christian B. Anfinsen Award of the Protein Society; Natural Products Award of the Royal Society of Chemistry, Stein and Moore Award of the Protein Society; Bader Award of the American Chemical Society; Kaj Ulrik Linderstrøm-Lang Prize and Medal; Bijvoet Medal of the Bijvoet Center for Biomolecular Research of Utrecht University in 2008 and the Gilbert N. Lewis Medal University of California, Berkeley, and the Wilhelm Exner Medal in 2009.
In 2003 he was knighted for his pioneering work on protein science. His citation on election to the Academy of Medical Sciences reads:

Personal life

Fersht's recreations include chess and horology. He married Marilyn Persell in 1966 and has one son and one daughter.