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Biography

Mathew Horrocks grew up in Halifax, West Yorkshire, and studied chemistry at Oriel College, University of Oxford, where a Master’s project with Professor Mark Wallace first introduced him to single-molecule techniques. He completed his PhD with Professor David Klenerman at the University of Cambridge, developing advanced microscopy methods to probe protein aggregates implicated in neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, followed by a research period in New South Wales, Australia.
 
He returned to Cambridge in 2016 as a junior research fellow at Christ’s College and Herchel Smith Fellow, before moving to the University of Edinburgh in 2018 to establish the ESMB Group; he was promoted to senior lecturer in 2022 and professor in 2024. His research spans fundamental biophysical chemistry through to translational applications, and he works closely with clinical scientists and industrial partners to develop technologies with real-world impact. 

His contributions have been recognised with numerous honours, including the Royal Society of ÉîÒ¹¸£Àû¹ú²ú¾«Æ· Joseph Black Award (2022) and selection as a Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists UK Finalist in Chemical Sciences (2026).

This award underlines the value of using physical chemistry to tackle real biological and medical problems, and it motivates us to push our single‑molecule approaches even further towards understanding disease and improving diagnosis.

Mathew Horrocks

Q&A

Can you tell us more about your work?

Much of modern medicine still relies on looking at biology in bulk: we average over millions of molecules or cells and then try to infer what is going wrong. My work aims to change this by using sensitive microscopes and fluorescent tags to watch and count individual molecules, one by one, inside complex biological samples, such as blood or brain tissue. By doing this, we can see rare but important events that are completely invisible to conventional methods, in the same way that looking at each person in a crowd tells you far more than just knowing how many people are there.

A major focus of my group is understanding how diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and ALS start and progress. These conditions often begin years before symptoms appear, with small numbers of ‘misbehaving’ molecules. We develop single-molecule imaging and microfluidic technologies that can pick out these early warning signs from a tiny amount of patient sample. For example, we build assays to detect and characterise individual protein aggregates linked to dementia, or nanoscale vesicles released into the bloodstream, with the long term aim of turning these into minimally invasive tests that can diagnose disease earlier and monitor how well treatments are working.

Because our approaches are highly quantitative and work directly with clinically relevant samples, we collaborate closely with clinicians and industrial partners. Clinicians help us access patient material and frame questions that matter in the clinic; companies help us turn proof of concept instruments into robust platforms that could ultimately be used in hospitals or diagnostic laboratories. The wider implication is that tools born out of fundamental physical chemistry and optics can translate into practical ‘liquid biopsies’ and other diagnostic technologies, contributing to earlier detection of disease, more personalised treatment decisions, and ultimately better outcomes for patients and health systems.

Who or what first sparked your interest in chemistry, and how has that interest evolved over time? 

My interest in chemistry was first sparked when I attended the Salters’ Institute ÉîÒ¹¸£Àû¹ú²ú¾«Æ· Camp at the University of York as a teenager. It was the first time I saw chemistry as something creative and experimental rather than just textbook learning. Since then, that interest has evolved towards using physical chemistry and microscopy to answer biological and medical questions, particularly around understanding and diagnosing disease.

What has been the most rewarding or memorable highlight of your career so far? 

One highlight has been seeing our single molecule assays move from a purely academic idea to being used on samples from Phase 2 and 3 clinical trials in Parkinson’s disease. Knowing that techniques developed at the bench are now helping to interpret real patient data, and could ultimately contribute to earlier diagnosis and better treatments, has been especially rewarding. Equally memorable is seeing former students and postdocs secure their own fellowships and independent positions.

What future directions or opportunities do you see for your work? 

A key direction is pushing single molecule methods further into clinical environments, developing assays and instruments that are high throughput and simple enough to be used routinely in hospital laboratories. There is also huge potential in combining advanced imaging with AI-based analysis to extract more information from complex datasets. Finally, I see opportunities in expanding beyond neurodegeneration, for example into cancer and cardiovascular disease, where single molecule sensitivity could reveal previously invisible biomarkers.

What do you wish more people understood about your field or the chemical sciences in general? 

I wish more people appreciated that chemistry is not only about making new molecules or making things explode, but also about developing tools to measure and visualise biology. Much of what we now consider ‘biological discovery’ relies on chemical principles and techniques: from thermodynamics and kinetics, fluorescent probes to microfluidics and single molecule microscopy. Chemical sciences sit at the heart of many advances in medicine and technology.

How important would you say collaboration is for producing high-quality science? How has collaboration influenced your work? 

Collaboration is essential for the sort of science I do. No single lab can excel in physical chemistry, advanced microscopy, disease biology, clinical trial design and industrial translation. Collaborations with clinicians have given us access to patient samples and clinically-relevant questions; partnerships with biologists have helped us interpret complex data; and working with industry has allowed us to think about scalability and translation.