Sanger (Biological Natural Sciences) Prize

St John’s College will proudly present again this year the Sanger (Biological Natural Sciences) Prize. The Sanger Prize is a one-off award of £8,000 to a first year undergraduate student coming to study Natural Sciences (Biological) at the College in October 2016.

The prize will be awarded on the basis of both academic excellence and financial need. The aim is to increase the accessibility of the College to applicants from all backgrounds, who might otherwise be daunted by the national increase in tuition fees.

All applicants, who have been offered a place at St John's College for the academic year 2016-17, will be eligible for the prize. The ones shortlisted will be contacted by the College in August and the successful student will be announced in the beginning of September. The winner of the prize will receive the award in a ceremony, which will take place in the College, just a few days before the commencement of the academic year.

The Sanger Prize has been named after Frederick Sanger, the famous British biochemist who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry twice, one of only two people to have achieved this in the same category. Sanger, who had gone to Bryanston school in Dorset, won a scholarship to study Natural Sciences at St John's College in 1936. His pioneering work on the structure of proteins, especially insulin, and DNA has introduced a new era in the field of medicine and genetics.