Please note, nominations are now closed. We are pleased to announce our latest award winner below.
This Lectureship celebrates outstanding early career researchers who have made significant contributions to a natural product related area of the chemical sciences in their independent research careers.
- It is presented annually
- The nominations are shortlisted, and the winner is selected by a judging panel made up of the Natural Product Reports Editorial Board
- The recipient of this lectureship receives the opportunity to present at a relevant high-profile international meeting with a contribution of up to £500 to cover associated costs
Our latest Lectureship winner 2025
Professor Fidele Ntie-Kang
Fidele is an Associate Professor of Pharmaceutical Chemistry at the Department of Chemistry, University of Buea in Cameroon where he also heads the Centre for Drug Discovery. After studying chemistry and physics at the University of Douala in Cameroon, he completed a PhD in computer-aided drug design. After serving briefly as a Senior Instructor at the University of Buea, he moved to Germany where he carried out postdoctoral research under Prof. Wolfgang Sippl with funding from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. His teaching and research in Germany led to a habilitation in pharmaceutical chemistry. Since then, his research has been focused on chemoinformatics for natural products research, a topic in which he is an editor of a book series.
He holds several editorial board appointments and is passionate about drug discovery from natural products identified from African medicinal plants. He has previously served as an Adjunct Professor at Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology, Arusha (Tanzania), and as a Guest Professor at the Technical University of Dresden (Germany).
With Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation funding, he has set up a drug discovery center in Cameroon, the only one in the entire central African region. His major contribution is the development of the African Natural Products Database. He was recently named by Stanford University and Elsevier amongst the top 2% of scientists in the world and classified by AD Scientific as a top-profiled scientist based in Sub-Saharan Africa.
See all previous winners
Guidelines for nominators and candidates
Find out who is eligible for this lectureship, about the nomination process and see who is on the selection panel.
Nomination deadline
Now closed
Lectureship winner announcement
Early 2025
The Natural Products Reports Emerging Investigator Lectureship is awarded through a process whereby nominations of candidates are invited from our community.
Open to all researchers globally
The NPR Lectureship is open to all researchers throughout the world. This includes, but is not limited to, members of the Royal Society of Chemistry, and researchers in academia or industry.
As part of the Royal Society of Chemistry, we believe we have a responsibility to promote inclusivity and accessibility to improve diversity. Where possible, we encourage each nominator to consider nominating candidates of all genders, races, and backgrounds. Please see the RSC's approach to Inclusion and Diversity.
Eligibility
To be eligible for the NPR Lectureship, the candidate must:
- Be an active natural products researcher, either in academia or industry, carrying out research that is within scope of the journal
- Be an independent researcher (this includes Research Associates or Fellows who run their own research group; PhD students and postdocs are not eligible)
- Be at an early stage of their independent career (this should typically be within 12 years of completing their PhD, but appropriate consideration will be given to those who have taken a career break, followed a different career path or work in systems where their time period to independence may vary). Please contact the Editorial Office if you have any queries
Nominations can be made by anyone and must be sent via email to the Editorial Office by 14 October 2024. Self-nominations are not permitted. All nominators will be asked to confirm that, to the best of their knowledge, their nominee’s professional standing is such that there is no confirmed or potential impediment to them receiving the Lectureship.
To nominate a candidate, please provide:
- The name, affiliation, website URL and contact details of the nominee
- An up-to-date nominee CV (three pages maximum)
- A letter of recommendation (500-word limit) addressing the following assessment criteria:
- Scientific quality of research output
- Innovation
- Community and advocacy activities
- Additional indicators of esteem may be included for consideration by the judging panel
- Statements as to why a nominee is eligible if they are beyond twelve years of their PhD completion, for instance, due to career breaks, will not count towards this word limit
- Contact details for a confirmed supporting referee
Please inform your referee of the nomination that the Editorial Office will request a supporting letter of recommendation (500-word limit) once the nomination has been received, where the referee should comment in detail on specific contributions, achievements and potential. Referees must state their relationship with the nominee e.g. this could be the nominee’s postdoc or PhD supervisor, line manager, project manager or academic mentor.
All eligible nominated candidates will be assessed by a judging panel made up of the Natural Product Reports Editorial Board.
The judging panel will consider the following core criteria:
- Scientific quality of research output
- Innovation
- Community and advocacy activities
Additional indicators of esteem will be considered by the judging panel where multiple nominees are judged equally meritorious in relation to these core criteria.
Previous winners
2024: Neha Garg, Georgia Institute of Technology, USA
2023: Christine Beemelmanns, Helmholtz Institute for Pharmaceutical Sciences Saarland, Germany
2022: Jinghan Gui, Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry, China
2021: Hans Renata, Scripps Research Institute, USA
2020: Alison Narayan, University of Michigan, USA
2019: Mo Seyedsayamdost, Princeton University, USA
2018: Konrad Tiefenbacher, University of Basel, Switzerland
2017: Katherine Ryan, University of British Columbia, Canada
2016: Ryan Shenvi, Scripps Research Institute, USA
2015: Seth Herzon, Yale University, USA
2014: Emily Balskus, Harvard University, USA
2013: Rebecca Goss, University of St Andrews, UK
See all our lectureships
Contact NPR Editorial Office
- Email:
- the team