A NOBEL Prize-winning Scottish chemist has said he believes drugs to treat Alzheimer’s disease could be available within five years.
Professor David MacMillan, originally from North Lanarkshire and now based at Princeton University, told the BBC's Scotcast podcast: “I would bet my house that within five years we have marketed drugs for Alzheimer’s.”
He said the rapid pace of development in neurological research gave him confidence that major treatment breakthroughs are close, calling the progress "phenomenal".
MacMillan, whose father and aunt both suffered from dementia, was awarded the 2021 Nobel Prize in Chemistry alongside Professor Benjamin List for developing a revolutionary method of constructing molecules.
Their discovery has already contributed to new approaches in treating Alzheimer’s, as well as cancer and cardiovascular disease.
He used his share of the prize money to launch The May and Billy MacMillan Foundation, named after his parents, to fund educational opportunities for underprivileged young Scots. Education, he said, was his “passport to the world".
Born in New Stevenston near Bellshill, MacMillan studied chemistry at the University of Glasgow before moving to the United States for postgraduate research. After academic posts at Harvard and Berkeley, he joined Princeton in 2006.
While he has long praised the scale and ambition of American scientific research, MacMillan expressed concern about recent political pressure on universities.
His Princeton research group, he said, has gone without government funding for seven months for the first time in 25 years. He attributed this to growing hostility towards higher education to the Trump-Vance administration.
He warned that the cuts could reflect a broader attempt to exert political control over academic institutions, describing the trend as “quite sinister.”
Despite these challenges, MacMillan said he has no immediate plans to return to Scotland, though he visits regularly to see family and, now, a close friend.
After winning the Nobel, he received an unexpected congratulatory call from Sir Alex Ferguson.
The two Glaswegians have since become friends and plan to attend a Manchester United match together later this year.
MacMillan’s achievements have also been honoured in Scotland’s National Portrait Gallery, where a new painting by Christabel Blackburn depicts him in his Princeton office.
A lab coat from his former school, Bellshill Academy, hangs in the background – a quiet reminder of how far he has come.
