Professor Peter Downes, University of Dundee
Professor Peter Downes is Principal and Vice-Chancellor. He joined the University in 1989 and was a Vice-Principal of the University and Head of the College of Life Sciences for three years.
Professor Downes is a distinguished biochemist who has played a key role in developing life sciences at the University of Dundee to its current status as a global player with a top 5* research rating, making a significant impact on the Scottish economy and, importantly, on 
the understanding and treatment of major diseases including diabetes and cancer. His work leading the Division of Signal Transduction Therapy with Sir Philip Cohen has led to the signing of a two phase £23m contract between the University with the world’s six leading pharmaceutical companies in a unique collaboration which anchors work on vital drug discovery to Dundee and Scotland. It is one of the largest ever research collaborations between the pharmaceutical industry and a British university and has been highlighted by the British Government as a model of best practice in technology transfer. The DSTT has also won, in November 2005, the highly coveted Queen’s Anniversary Prize – the equivalent of the honours system for universities in the UK.
He is one of the 15 most cited bio-scientists in the UK and his work has undoubtedly contributed to Dundee University having been named by the Institute for Scientific Information in Philadelphia as the most quoted university in Europe over the last 10 years, in life and medical sciences. As Vice Principal and Head of the School of Life Sciences he can also take significant credit from a poll of international scientists who named Dundee for the fourth year running as the best place in Europe in which to work – The Scientist.
Over the last 15 years Peter has played a fundamental role in building life sciences activity at the university to its current international position and Scotland’s only 5* department in biological sciences. Today the School of Life Sciences, including the Wellcome Trust Biocentre, employs over 700 scientists and support staff from 54 countries and is at the core of a biotechnology cluster that accounts for 16% of the local economy.
As a biochemist Peter has made an important contribution over many years. He identified the mechanism of action of the drug Lithium used to treat manic depression and has played a key role developing our understanding of the roles of inositol lipids in signalling from an area of specialist interest to its current status, having a major influence in physiology and human disease. Of particular interest in this regard, his collaboration with Lew Cantley, which identified 3-phosphorylated inositol lipids, initiated the PI 3-kinase field. For these discoveries he was awarded the Colworth Medal of the British Biochemical Society in 1987 and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1991. The esteem in which he is held nationally may be gauged by his election as Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Biochemical Society 2001-04. He is a member of the Council of the Biosciences Federation. He was honoured by the Queen with an OBE in 2004.
