THE WELLCOME TRUST
The Wellcome Trust has announced three research grants intended to strengthen its work exploring the ethical issues that arise in the development and the delivery of healthcare. The awards have been granted to enhance collaboration and support new research fellowships and studentships.
- Award winner: Clare Williams
Institution: King's College London
Value: £820,000
The shifting moral landscapes as research progresses in areas such as human embryonic stem-cell research and neuroscience. What are the acceptable boundaries of science and medicine? Will scientific advances change what it means to be human?
- Award winner: Julian Savulescu
Institution: Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, University of Oxford
Value: £820,000
The new discipline of neuroethics: problems for ethics, research and clinical practice in areas such as addiction, criminal responsibility, treatment of vegetative patients, medical decision-making and enhancing normal cognitive capacity.
- Award winner (institution): Theresa Marteau (King's College London), Richard Ashcroft (University of London) and Adam Oliver (London School of Economics)
Value: £850,000
Use of financial incentives in UK healthcare, and when it is right to use financial incentives to improve health. The issue is examined in the context of obesity, health in pregnancy, medication for psychotic disorders and substance misuse.
DR HADWEN TRUST FOR HUMANE RESEARCH
- Award winner: Oliver Hanemann
Institution: Peninsula Medical School
Value: £124,090
Development and use of a human-cell culture model to test new therapies for neurofibromatosis type 2 tumours and provide an alternative to lengthy animal tests.
- Award winner: Amanda Ellison
Institution: University of Durham
Value: £104,351
Human brain research with dual-site transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) as an alternative to invasive brain-damaging experiments on non-human primates.
- Award winner: Craig Winstanley
Institution: University of Liverpool
Value: £134,954
Artificial sputum as an alternative to animals in studying bacterial population response to challenge with antibiotics in cystic fibrosis.
- Award winner: Tom Solomon
Institution: University of Liverpool
Value: £134,050
Development and use of a blood-brain barrier model to study viral encephalitis in the test tube instead of in animals.
- Award winner: Sarah Herrick
Institution: University of Manchester
Value: £122,322
Development of a three-dimensional human airway model as an alternative to animal studies to understand control of mucus production in asthma.
ACTION MEDICAL RESEARCH
Action Medical Research has announced three research training fellowships for 2008, to aid career development into medical research.
- Award winner: Tracey Mills
Institution: University of Manchester
Value: £160,244
Foetal growth restriction.
- Award winner: Thomas Hiemstra
Institution: University of Cambridge
Value: £200,906
Investigating how kidney stones develop.
- Award winner: Manju Kurian
Institution: University of Birmingham
Value: £135,648
Investigating infantile spasms and MRST syndrome.
