The Donald Medal is recommended each year for award to an individual for outstanding services to biochemical engineering. BESIG members may propose individuals online. 

The medal is named after Maxwell Donald, a long-serving Honorary Secretary and former Ramsay Professor at University College London (UCL) where biochemical engineering was first established in the UK. 

In the 1930s Jack Drummond, the first UCL Professor of Biochemistry, succeeded in isolating pure vitamin A. To do this however, he needed large quantities of fish liver oils and later, wheat germ. Drummond was helped by Maxwell Donald, a young process engineer and lecturer in chemical engineering at UCL. So began the linkage of departments that created the Department of Biochemical Engineering. By the 1950s, Donald was a Professor and Head of Department. He worked with Ernest Baldwin, Head of Biochemistry, to establish a joint Diploma, later a Master’s programme in biochemical engineering at UCL.

Donald also worked closely with visionary biologists Eric Crook and Pat Clark at UCL to scale up new biological discoveries. Crook and Donald helped launch Biotechnology and Bioengineering, the subject’s first journal, in 1959.

Winners

2024 - Not awarded
2023 - Cleo Kontoravdi (Imperial College, London)
2021 - Gary Lye (University College London)
2019 - Angela Osborne ( Exmoor Pharma)
2018 - Colin Webb (Manchester University)
2017 - Chris Hewitt (Aston University)
2016 - David Williams (Loughborough University)
2015 - Sakis Mantalaris (Imperial College, London)
2014 - Crawford Brown (Activis Biologics)
2013 - Nigel Titchener-Hokker (University College, London)
2012 - Mark Carver (Fijifilm Diosynth Biotechnology)
2011 - Howard Chase (University of Cambridge
2009 - Nigel Slater (University of Cambridge) 
2008 - Mohamed Al-Rubeai (University College Dublin) 
2007 - Andrew Lyddiatt (Millipore) 
2006 - Geoff Hamer (University College Dublin) 
2005 - John Birch (Lonza Biologics) 
2004 - Colin Thomas (University of Birmingham) 
2003 - Subash Chaudhary (Avecia Biologics) 
2002 - Mike Hoare (University College London) 
2001 - Barry Buckland (Merck) 
2000 - Alvin Neinow (University of Birmingham) 
1999 - Paul Edwards (Genemedix) 
1998 - Nick Emery (University of Birmingham) 
1997 - Jan Guidoboni (GRC Consultants) 
1996 - Bernard Atkinson (UMIST) 
1995 - Peter Dunnill (University College London) 
1994 - Steve Vranch (Wellcome) 
1993 - Malcolm Lilly (University College London) 
1992 - Andrew Stankiewicz (ICI) 
1991 - Not Awarded 
1990 - Norman Blakebrough (University of Reading) 
1989 - David Shore (APV)