Matthew Fuchter is a Professor of Chemistry at Imperial College London. His research aims to make fundamental scientific advances that have strong potential for impact, particularly within materials and medicine. His work has revitalized and expanded the possibilities of using chiral molecules – molecules which exist as a pair of non-superimposable mirror images – in technological applications. These include using molecular chirality to control the chiral polarisation state of light (circularly polarisation) emitted or detected by organic electronic devices – of potential use in display technology, quantum communication, etc. His group also discovered a new molecular photoswitch – a  molecule that can be interconverted into two different states using light – that is now being used worldwide in multiple light-addressable applications, spanning chemical biology, supramolecular chemistry and materials science. Professor Fuchter has made equally important contributions to the fields of medicinal chemistry and drug discovery, developing chemistry-led approaches to validate novel disease targets. Notable examples include the first validation of a key epigenetic drug target class in human malaria and the development of several first-in-class drugs, which are in clinical trials for cancer.