UNCITI-BROCETA GROUP

Prof Asier Unciti-Broceta FRSC

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Personal Chair of Medicinal Chemistry

Head of the Innovative Therapeutics Lab

University of Edinburgh

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Year of birth: 1976

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Place of birth: La Linea, Andalucia, Spain

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Email: asier.ub@ed.ac.uk

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Asier studied Pharmacy (MPharm, 1999) and did a PhD in Medicinal Chemistry (2004) with Prof Antonio Espinosa at the Universidad de Granada, Spain. After a Chemical Biology postdoc with Prof Mark Bradley (School of Chemistry, University of Edinburgh, 2005-08) and a Scottish Enterprise PoC award to develop and be trained in IP protection and commercialisation (2008-10), he took a group leader position in 2010 at the Institute of Genetics and Cancer to create its first chemistry lab. In parallel, he founded Deliverics Ltd and worked as CSO for 4 years. He was promoted to Reader in 2015 and Full Professor of Medicinal Chemistry in 2018. His lab focuses on the development of novel chemical strategies to improve the efficacy and safety of cancer treatment, including novel prodrug approaches and small molecule kinase inhibitors. 

 

For the last years, the Unciti-Broceta Research Group has focused its efforts on three research lines:

1. Development of kinase inhibitors using cooperative ligand-based drug design and phenotypic screening

2. Hit-to-Lead and Lead Optimisation of hits identified by HT phenotypic screenings

3. Preclinical drug development

4. Innovative prodrug approaches to improve cancer chemotherapy

5. Exploration of new chemical strategies for target ID of novel phenotypic hits/leads and clinical drugs

 

CAREER ACHIEVEMENTS AND RECOGNITIONS

 

• 2026 Biochemical Society Industry and Academic Collaboration Award 2027, Biochemical Society, UK.

• 2025 Premio Patrimonio de Algeciras 2025, AEPA-2015, Spain. 

• 2024 BMCS Lectureship Award 2024/2025, Royal Society of Chemistry, UK.

• 2024 Further, Faster, Together (Industry-Academia collaboration)​ - CRH Innovation and Entrepreneur-ship Awards 2024, Cancer Research Horizons, UK.

• 2023 Bandera de Andalucía a la Investigación, Ciencia y la Salud, Junta de Andalucía, Spain.

• 2022 Elected member of the RSC Biological and Medicinal Chemistry Sector committee.

• 2021 Antena de Oro, Cadena Ser, Spain.

• 2019 Member of the Scientific Advisory Board of Bioconjugate Chemistry, ACS.

• 2019 Emeritus YAS Member, Royal Society of Edinburgh, UK.

• 2018 Promotion to Professor, College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine, UoE, UK.

• 2016 Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, RSC, UK.

• 2016 Editorial Board Member of Scientific Reports, Nature Publishing Group, UK.

• 2016 Associate Member of EPSRC College, Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, UK.

• 2016 RSE/Patrick Neill Medal 2016, Royal Society of Edinburgh, UK.

• 2015 Promotion to Reader, College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine, UoE, UK.

• 2014 Contribution Reward for Academics 2014, College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine, UoE, UK.

• 2013 Associate Editor of Frontiers in Chemistry (specialty of Medicinal and Pharmaceutical Chemistry).

• 2013 Elected member of the RSE Young Academy of Scotland (2nd cohort).

• 2013 Andaluz Especial 2013 (Centro Andaluz, Spain).

• 2012 Young Industrialist of the Year Award 2012 (Royal Society of Chemistry).

• 2011 Deliverics Ltd awarded Most Promising Young Life Science Company of the Year (Nexxus Scotland).

• 2010 Nexxus Young Life Scientist of the Year Award 2010 from Nexxus Scotland.

• 2010 Academic Fellowship  / Appointment as Group Leader at the ECRC, IGMM, UoE, UK.

• 2010 Founder of Deliverics Ltd, UoE’s spin-out established to commercialize transfection technology.

• 2009 Member of the Editorial Advisory Board of the journal Therapeutic Delivery (from 2009 to 2014).

• 2009 Contribution Reward 2009, College of Science and Engineering, UoE, UK.

• 2004 PhD Thesis awarded the Doctor Europeus Mention from the University of Granada (Spain).

• 2001 Scholarship of the Ramón Areces Foundation to perform PhD studies in chemical sciences (Spain).