The 2020 Keilin Memorial Lecture was awarded to Professor Judy Hirst of MRC Mitochondrial Biology Unit, UK.

Judy’s research has made pivotal contributions to understanding energy conversion in complex redox enzymes: how they capture the energy released by a redox reaction to power proton translocation across a membrane, or catalyse the interconversion of chemical bond energy and electrical potential. She is known particularly for her work on mammalian respiratory complex I (NADH: ubiquinone oxidoreductase), an energy-transducing, mitochondrial redox enzyme of fundamental and medical importance, and for solving its structure by electron cryomicroscopy. Judy was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2018.

Judy said: “I am delighted to have been selected to receive the Keilin Memorial Lecture Award. I feel this award recognizes the importance of taking on challenging long-term research projects at the boundaries of basic and biomedical science, and have been fortunate to have been supported by The Medical Research Council throughout – as well as by a team of talented and enthusiastic students and postdocs.”

Judy presented her Award lecture on Monday 7 December 2020 during ‘Low molecular weight thiols: lessons learned and new perspectives’ online conference.

The 2018 Keilin Memorial Lecture was presented to Neil Hunter, who holds the Krebs Chair of Biochemistry at the University of Sheffield. Neil’s research on energy and electron transfers in microbial photosynthesis recently culminated in a complete structural and functional description of an energy-transducing membrane, from collecting sunlight to charge separation, quinone migration, generation of a proton gradient, and finally catalysis by the ATP synthase. Neil has also made major contributions to understanding the biogenesis of the haem, bacteriochlorophyll, chlorophyll and carotenoid cofactors, and their assembly into energy, electron and proton transfer complexes…

Read Neil's article published in the Biochemical Journal - Dissecting the cytochrome c2–reaction centre interaction in bacterial photosynthesis using single molecule force spectroscopy.

Of winning the Keilin Memorial Lectureship, Neil said “I am delighted and honoured to be the recipient of the Keilin Medal and Lecture, particularly because I join a list of eminent recipients of this award. I would like to thank past and present members of my research group and my many collaborators for their contributions over the last thirty three years.” 

Neil presented his award lecture at the 84th Harden Conference: Single- molecule bacteriology on 9-12 September 2018 at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, UK.

The Keilin Memorial Lecture in 2016 was presented to Michael Murphy (MRC MBU, Cambridge, UK) for his contribution to research in basic and applied bioenergetics. Michael has produced influential discoveries in the last 20 years showing the detailed mechanisms of mitochondrial oxidant production and has pioneered translational redox bioenergetics.

Michael Murphy gave his award lecture at the 79th Harden Conference: Oxygen Evolution and Reduction – Common Principles, Grauer Bär, Innsbruck, Austria, 16—20 April 2016.

Read Michael's article published in Biochemical Society Transactions - Understanding and preventing mitochondrial oxidative damage.