Ground-breaking drug discovery work at the University of Dundee has been honoured by a major international award.
Professor Alessio Ciulli, of the University’s Centre for Targeted Protein Degradation (CeTPD), and members of its ACBI (Alessio Ciulli and Boehringer Ingelheim) PROTAC collaboration team have been recognised for their pioneering work with industry partner, Boehringer Ingelheim, with the Biochemical Society’s 2026 Industry and Academic Collaboration Award. As cited on the Society’s website, the award “recognises and promotes an outstanding individual or team who has made an inspirational contribution to the biosciences and to industry-academia interaction.”
In the partnership, the University is working with collaborators at Boehringer Ingelheim on the development of proteolysis targeting chimaeras (PROTACs), novel drugs that target previously considered ‘undruggable’ proteins that are drivers of cancer progression.
Professor Ciulli, the founder and Director of the CeTPD and a recognised leader in the field, said, “I am delighted to receive this award on behalf of the entire ACBI team. It recognises the vision and success of our ‘team science’ with Boehringer Ingelheim. The collaboration has demonstrated the power of our approach to rationally design PROTACs. It has achieved tremendous impact, with highly cited papers, and through openly sharing with the research community our best-quality molecules, as these continue to be developed toward new medicines for cancer patients.”
“This award is a great recognition of our collaboration,” said Peter Ettmayer, Head of Drug Discovery Sciences Vienna at Boehringer Ingelheim. “We are very proud of our continuing partnership with Alessio Ciulli, which began in 2016, right at the outset of a new field that is now known as targeted protein degradation. It has since been one of the longest and largest collaborations ever pursued by Boehringer with a single PI-led academic laboratory.”
“This prestigious award is a tribute to the hard work and dedication of all scientists at Dundee and Boehringer that have worked together to degrade high-profile cancer targets such as KRAS and SMARCA2,” added Professor Ciulli.
“Of particular mention are the contributions of Dr. Kirsten McAulay and Dr. William Farnaby, who have each impeccably led the ACBI team based in my laboratory, during the current and previous phases of the collaboration, respectively."
“I hope that this award will bolster our continued relationship with Boehringer and, more broadly, that it will inspire others to adopt similarly open and fully integrated models of academia-industry partnerships to catalyse innovation and translation.”
