2026 news
A new study unravels the hidden molecular chemistry of hyperpolarisation, paving the way for more powerful, real-time metabolic MRI scans
BN-polymers are potential pre-ceramic precursors for producing technologically important shaped boron-nitride materials. A new report now unlocks their precisely tuneable synthesis, on scale and with very small amounts of catalyst, all enabled through a detailed understanding of the catalytic mechanism.
Recently published in Nature Reviews Chemistry Julia Sarju explores the sensory landscape of chemistry labs
How does a deadly bacteria trick the human body into letting its guard down? New research reveals that MenB meningitis wears a chemical disguise in the form of a modified polysaccharide that directly flips the "off switch" on our immune cells. Working as part of a collaborative team, Jon Agirre has contributed to map this stealth mechanism with high resolution atomic detail. The breakthrough unlocks a major clue in the fight against severe infections.
By introducing a fully automated workflow to deliver highly repeatable hyperpolarisation, the Halse group has developed multi-step NMR experiments to overcome both the signal overlap and low sensitivity that occur when using compact, and relatively cheap, benchtop NMR spectrometers for mixture analysis.
New analysis of the South African's Rising Star Cave fossils reveals striking genetic singularity: either a sex-specific burial site from a non-human species or an isolated population over hundreds of thousands of years.
50 years ago, Guy and Eleanor Dodson arrived in York. The group they founded in 1976, now known as the York Structural Biology Laboratory (YSBL), has grown to be a major international centre for the development and application of structural biology. To mark this half century of excellence a conference was held on campus to celebrate past achievements and think about the future of structural biology at York.
York is ranked 8th in the UK for Chemistry in the latest release of the Complete University Guide league tables (2027).
Dr Will Unsworth has won the Royal Society of Chemistry’s 2026 Organic Chemistry mid-career Robert Robinson Prize.
A collaborative team led by Professor Andrew Weller has been awarded a 2026 Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) Horizon Prize. This team award recognises their pioneering development of Solid-state Molecular OrganoMetallic (SMOM) chemistry.
The 2026 Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) Horizon Prize at the Chemistry Biology Interface has been awarded to a team including Professor Tony Wilkinson, for collaboration underpinning the development of new tools to deliver the identification, and chemical and genetic validation, of multiple new drug targets for leishmaniasis and Chagas’ disease.
The Royal Society of Chemistry has recognised a major scientific network for its outstanding contribution to the global analytical sciences community.
Three chemistry PhD researchers progressed to the final of the 3 Minute Thesis (3MT) competition at the University of York, winning first and second place overall.
York chemists, working with international collaborators, show that small structural changes to a cisplatin-like platinum compound transform it into a non-toxic antibiotic that clears drug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus from mice skin infections.
York chemists have developed a new strategy to chemically install diaryl ketones into synthetic peptides, which are at the forefront of modern drug discovery
Researchers from the University of York are part of a partnership that has been awarded more than £900,000 to transform how high-risk chemistry experiments are conducted.
Research led by the Department of Archaeology, with crucial input from the Centre of Excellence in Mass Spectrometry in the Department of Chemistry, reveals two infants buried in Roman York were laid to rest in costly purple cloth normally reserved for emperors and members of the aristocracy.
A collaboration between the University of York, the University of Leeds, and AstraZeneca has bridged chemistry and engineering to streamline drug synthesis using continuous flow technology, offering a faster, safer, and more scalable future for pharmaceutical manufacturing.
The annual poster competition for our Yr 3 PhD students has taken place, with kind sponsorship once again by Johnson Matthey. This year we were joined by Dr Paul O’Shaughnessy from JM who took time to view posters, chat with participants about their work, and give a talk on recycling platinum group metals.
The findings from a RSC Sustainable Laboratories grant funded project at the University of York have recently been highlighted in the Royal Society of Chemistry's Chemistry World Magazine.
The complete lifecycle of a manganese complex as it participates in chemically important bond-activation steps has been mapped on timescales from femtoseconds to seconds. Novel, critical, and unexpected, pathways have been identified, which will inform the development of future light-activated reactions.
Often, air pollution is thought of as something that happens outside. Yet the air inside our homes may pose just as significant a risk to our health and as we typically spend 90% of our time indoors, our exposure to pollutants there is higher than outdoor exposure. This is a concern that science has, until recently, been surprisingly slow to address. The University of York is changing that, with a facility unlike anything else in the world.
Scientists say that new laboratory tests have revealed a new way to stop flu viruses, which could lead to better treatments and improved pandemic preparedness.
Researchers from the School of Physics, Engineering, and Technology have joined forces with the Department of Chemistry to create a new type of environmental gas sensor.
For effective cleaning we add surfactants (in soaps and detergents) to lower the surface tension of water. Using a new theory, a York chemist can explain this effect more effectively, developing new insights, and hence understand why some surfactants are much better at this job than others.
The Green Chemistry Centre has achieved and been awarded My Green Lab® Certification for Green Chemistry York at the Platinum Level.
The TransPharm consortium have collaborated to create an educational website explaining the environmental impact of pharmaceuticals and describing safer and more sustainable practices in the healthcare sector. The platform can be found at www.sustainablepharmaceuticals.eu.
Scientists from the University of York have developed innovative self-assembling gels that direct and control the growth of human stem cells, with potential applications in regenerative medicine.
Alfonso Burri Mereles, a Chevening Scholar from Paraguay, explains how he overcame setbacks to pursue his passion for Green Chemistry at the University of York.
Professor Paul Walton has been elected as a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (RSAS).
Two new doctoral training awards at the University of York will be used to train the next generation of scientists through specialised PhD programmes. They will equip these new researchers with the technical and transferable skills needed to contribute to the UK’s bioeconomy, while fostering a collaborative and inclusive training environment.
A new method for the preparation of medicinally important chiral sulfur compounds has been developed using a class of enzymes called ‘Unspecific Peroxygenases’.
Marc Dickinson of the University of York has received both a NERC Independent Research Fellowship and the Lewis Penny Award and for pioneering research using protein breakdown in teeth for dating the last 3 million years.
New research demonstrates a top-down approach to solution-phase protein structure determination that combines 2D-IR spectral libraries with machine learning.
Scientists at University of York were delighted to be recognised with an “outstanding research paper” award from the Royal Society of Chemistry.
York researchers have changed how we think about spore germination by showing that spores restart energy metabolism early on to power their awakening from dormancy.