PROFESSOR Alan Fairlamb, Wellcome Principal Research Fellow at Dundee University’s School of Life Sciences, has been awarded the CBE for services to medical science.

Professor Fairlamb (58), who is head of the university’s division of biological chemistry and molecular microbiology, is a world-renowned specialist in the biochemistry of tropical diseases.

He is one of the leading researchers involved with the university’s recently launched programme of drug discovery for tropical diseases, primarily aimed at African sleeping sickness, Chagas’ disease and leishmaniasis.

Professor Fairlamb has been based in the School of Life Sciences at Dundee University for the past nine years.

Previously he worked at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and at the Rockefeller University in New York.

He has served as an adviser on numerous expert committees in the tropical parasitic disease area, including the World Health Organisation, the Medical Research Council, the Wellcome Trust and the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative.

He has published over 200 papers in the field of parasite biochemistry and molecular biology.

The CBE completes a hat-trick of honours for Professor Fairlamb.

This year he was also elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, and awarded the Kitasato Medal for Microbial Chemistry, one of the most notable awards in his field.

“It is indeed a great honour to receive such a prestigious award,” Professor Fairlamb said of his CBE.

“I hope that this will highlight the need for better, safer and cheaper drugs to treat these neglected diseases of the poor.

“I have always been passionate about easing the suffering of people living in tropical areas of the world.

“My basic research has never lost sight of the need to discover better treatments for these terrible diseases.

“Improving people’s health is one way of helping to reduce the poverty that is such a blight on the developing world.”

Professor Fairlamb lives in Newport with wife Carolyn Strobos and children Zoe (15) and Thomas (12). His eldest daughter, Saffron, lives in Southend- on-Sea.