Paul Fish's Biography

Paul Fish, Head of Chemistry, Alzheimers Research UK, UCL Drug Discovery Institute

Paul received his BSc in Chemistry from the University of Nottingham and he then stayed on to undertake PhD studies in synthetic organic chemistry working on the total synthesis of marine natural products. Subsequently, he moved to the USA where he performed postdoctoral research at Harvard University and then Stanford University. Paul started his career in drug discovery in 1994 as a medicinal chemist in the pharmaceutical industry with Pfizer at Sandwich (UK) and through his research he has helped to co-discover and deliver a number of drug candidates across several therapeutic disease areas, some of which have gone on to advanced clinical studies. In 2006, he then combined his medicinal chemistry role with the position of Research Project Leader with the responsibility of delivering projects from the exploratory portfolio through to clinical FIH studies. In 2009, Paul joined Pfizer’s Regenerative Medicine and Epigenetic unit where he led the exploratory chemistry team in support of the unit’s small molecule and stem cell therapies for the treatment of neuroregeneration with an emphasis on a chemogenomic approach towards phenotypical screening to identify new drug targets for dementia. In addition, he led Pfizer’s open access collaboration with the Structural Genomics Consortium to identify new chemical probes for epigenetic research. In 2012 he was appointed as Professor and Chair of Medicinal Chemistry at the UCL School of Pharmacy where his research activities were focussed on the identification of new small molecule chemical probes for bromodomain and histone methyl transferase proteins. In January 2016, Paul moved to the UCL Faculty of Brain Sciences to become the Head of Chemistry for the Alzheimer’s Research UK UCL Drug Discovery Institute.

Paul has co-authored over 100 scientific publications including 21 patents and serves on the scientific advisory boards for ‘not-for-profit’ organisations such as Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV) and Salvensis (rare and neglected diseases).