Biography
Professor Michael A.J. Ferguson CBE, FRS, FRSE FMedSci
Division of Biological Chemistry and Drug Discovery
College of Life Sciences
University of Dundee
Mike Ferguson obtained a BSc in Biochemistry at The University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (1979) and a PhD in Biochemistry (1982) at London University. He was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Rockefeller University, New York, with George Cross, FRS (1982-1985) and at Oxford University with Raymond Dwek, FRS (1985-1988). He took up a lectureship at The University of Dundee in 1988 and was promoted to a personal chair in Molecular Parasitology in 1994. He became Dean of Research for the College of Life Sciences at The University of Dundee in 2007.
Mike has published over 200 peer reviewed research papers and given numerous invited lectures at Scientific Meetings around the world. He is known for solving the first structures of glycosylphosphatidylinositol (GPI) membrane anchors, which play a important roles throughout eukaryotic biology.
His research takes a multidisciplinary approach to understanding the biochemistry of protozoan parasites that cause tropical diseases, particularly the trypanosomatids that cause human African Sleeping Sickness, Chagas' disease and leishmaniasis. He believes in the fundamental importance of working across the Biology / Chemistry interface and he has published extensively on and the design and synthesis of potential drug-leads against tropical diseases. He is particularly interested in Translational Research and, together with his colleagues, was instrumental in establishing the new Drug Discovery Unit at the University of Dundee. He is also Director of the successful Dundee Proteomics Facility.