Barry V. L. Potter


Barry Victor Lloyd Potter MAE FMedSci is Professor of Medicinal & Biological Chemistry at the University of Oxford, Wellcome Trust Senior Investigator and a Fellow of University College, Oxford.

Early Life and Education

Potter was born in Brighton, Sussex and attended Hove County Grammar School. He won an Open Exhibition scholarship to Worcester College, University of Oxford and obtained a first class Bachelor of Arts degree, also winning the Part II Thesis Prize in Organic Chemistry. He earned a Doctor of Philosophy degree from Wolfson College, Oxford for work carried out in the Dyson Perrins Laboratory on the stereochemistry of enzyme-catalyzed phosphoryl transfer reactions under the supervision of Gordon Lowe FRS. He was subsequently awarded a DSc degree from the University of Oxford for his published work up to 1992 in “Studies in Biological Chemistry”.

Career and Research

Potter was a postdoctoral research associate first at Oxford and subsequently was funded by the Royal Society to work at the Max Planck Institute for Experimental Medicine in Göttingen, Federal Republic of Germany with :de:Fritz_Eckstein|Professor Fritz Eckstein in the nucleic acid and molecular biology fields and he later became a Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter. He was lecturer in biological chemistry in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Leicester, a Lister Institute of Preventive Medicine Research Fellow and held the established chair of Medicinal Chemistry at University of Bath for over 20 years, initially as Lister Institute Research Professor, and is currently a visiting professor. He was visiting professor of medicinal and biological chemistry at the University of Oxford until 2015. His research, primarily employing synthetic organic chemistry, is highly interdisciplinary at the interfaces of Chemistry with Biology and with Medicine and encompasses medicinal and biological chemistry, chemical biology and drug design, discovery and development, especially for oncology and women's health.
He is particularly known for his work on the sterochemistry of enzyme reactions that transfer phosphate groups, eg kinases, phosphatases, polymerases, nucleases etc, pioneering application of synthetic chiral isotopomeric phosphates using both stable isotopes of 16O-oxygen in the - approach and also using the 18O-isotope in combination with sulphur; and the application of synthetic and biological chemistry techniques to cellular signalling through the study of the calcium-releasing second messengers inositol trisphosphate, cyclic adenosine 5'-diphosphate ribose, nicotinic acid adenine diphosphate ribose 2'-phosphate and adenosine 5'-diphosphate ribose and also in nucleotide and carbohydrate chemistry.
In drug design and discovery work one of the "first-in-class" academically discovered clinical drug targets identified is steroid sulfatase and the first potent inhibitor designed was the steroidal sulfamate EMATE. Synthetic active-site-directed, irreversible, time-dependent steroidal and non-steroidal inactivators of the enzyme progressed to clinical trials and were translated to the pharmaceutical industry. This work in collaboration with Michael J Reed lead to sulfamate-based drugs such as Irosustat and E2MATE that have completed many clinical trials in women's health, including for hormone replacement therapy and endometriosis, post-menopausal ER+ hormone dependent breast cancer, advanced/metastatic or recurrent estrogen receptor-positive endometrial cancer and castration-resistant prostate cancer and are still progressing clinically. E2MATE/PGL2001 was well tolerated and first clinical trials showed that local endometrial STS could be reduced by 91% by a single dose of only 4 mg/per week of the drug alone and 96% in combination with a progestin. A Phase II, multicentre, randomised, two-arm, parallel group, double-blind, placebo controlled, clinical study was initiated. Results are awaited. In randomised phase II trials using Irosustat vs the current standard of care in recurrent/metastatic post-menopausal endometrial cancer patients results showed clinical activity and a good safety profile. Pharmacodynamic proof of concept for Irosustat was demonstrated in prostate cancer patients with suppression of the non-sulfated androgens testosterone, androstenediol and DHEA. The most recent IRIS and IPET breast cancer clinical trials met their clinical endpoints; results were discussed and clinical benefit demonstrated for Irosustat both as a monotherapy in early breast cancer and in combination with an aromatase inhibitor. Further trials are necessary.
Potter co-founded in 1997 the university spin-out company Sterix Limited jointly between the University of Bath and Imperial College, London. Sterix Ltd was acquired by the French Ipsen Group in 2004.

Awards and honours

Potter was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2008. The citation reads:
“He has made wide-ranging contributions at the interface of Chemistry with both Biology and Medicine. In Chemical Biology he has elucidated the stereochemistry of numerous enzyme-catalysed phosphoryl and nucleotidyl transfer reactions using isotopically chiral substrates and DNA fragments. He has applied organic synthesis techniques in novel ways using carbohydrate, cyclitol and phosphorus chemistry to design modulators of cellular signal transduction processes that mobilize intracellular Ca2+ through second messengers. Of particular relevance to this Academy he has pioneered the novel aryl sulfamate pharmacophore in drug design. Unusually within an academic setting, he has brought compounds from initial academic concept to multiple clinical trials in women’s health. These have shown evidence of efficacy in humans, particularly in the anti-cancer field related to hormone-dependent breast cancer”.
He was elected a Member of the pan-European Academy of Science, Humanities & Letters the Academia Europaea in 2009.
He has also won a number of academic and industrial awards and medals e.g.: Royal Society of Chemistry, 2007 UCB-Celltech Industrially Sponsored Award & Medal for Chemical Biology; Royal Society of Chemistry, 2007/8 George and Christine Sosnovsky Award & Medal in Cancer Therapy; 2009 GlaxoSmithKline International Achievement Award; Royal Society of Chemistry, Biological & Medicinal Chemistry Section, 2009 Malcolm Campbell Memorial Prize & Medal ; Royal Society of Chemistry 2010 Interdisciplinary Prize & Medal; 2012 European Life Science Award, Investigator of the Year; Royal Society of Chemistry, Biological & Medicinal Chemistry Section, 2015/16 2nd RSC-BMCS Lectureship; 2018 Tu Youyou Award for Natural Product and Medicinal Chemistry.