James Henderson Naismith

Education Naismith was named after James VI and I. He was educated at Hamilton Grammar School. at the University of Manchester where he received his PhD in 1992 for research into the chemical structure of Concanavalin A and Zinc aldolase. In 2016 he was awarded a Doctor of Science (DSc) by the University of St Andrews.

Career and research Following his PhD, Naismith did postdoctoral research at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center as a NATO Fellow in the laboratory of Stephen Sprang. He was appointed a lecturer at the University of St Andrews in 1995, Reader in 1999 and a Professor in 2001. Naismith's research investigates:

His research has been funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), the Medical Research Council (MRC), the Wellcome Trust and the European Union.

Naismith joined the University of Oxford in 2017 as Professor of Structural Biology in the Nuffield Department of Medicine and Senior Research Fellow at Jesus College. He directed the Research Complex at Harwell between 2017 and 2019 and the Rosalind Franklin Institute from 2018.

Awards and honours Naismith was awarded the 2000 Dextra Carbohydrate award and the 2009 Jeremy Knowles Prize in Chemical Biology both from the Royal Society of Chemistry. Naismith was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2014. His nomination reads:

Naismith was part of the team awarded a 2022 Royal Society of Chemistry Horizon Prize for their work on nanobodies against Covid19. Naismith is also Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC), the Royal Society of Biology (FRSB), the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE), the Academy of Medical Sciences, United Kingdom (FMedSci), an elected member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO), in 2016 was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and in 2022 elected a member of Academia Europaea (AE). His nomination for the Academy of Medical Sciences reads:

Personal life Naismith is married to Rachel Middleton with whom he has one son and one daughter.