A SCOTTISH university department is one of just 12 across the UK to receive a prestigious Regius professorship to mark the Queen's Diamond Jubilee last year.
The Cabinet Office announced that Dundee University would receive a professorship in the life sciences from the Queen to recognise its excellence in research and teaching.
Regius professorships are traditionally created when a university chair is founded or endowed by a royal patron. They come with no extra funding, but enable universities give the title to an existing professor or appoint a new one.
Professor Pete Downes, principal of Dundee University, welcomed the award as an "affirmation" of the institution's world-class standing in life sciences.
And he announced that the first Regius Professor in Life Sciences at Dundee would be Professor Mike Ferguson, the Dean of Research in the College of Life Sciences.
"We also have a strong cohort of dynamic young scientists and rising stars in their fields, who will help carry the excellence of Life Sciences at Dundee into the future," he added.
Mr Ferguson, who is a world expert on the biochemistry of parasites that cause human tropical diseases, said: "This is a great accolade for Life Sciences at Dundee – to all those who have built it up to what it is today and to those who will sustain it in the future."
Before this award, only two Regius professorships were awarded in the past century, both at the University of Cambridge.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article