The Wellcome Trust
The 2008 Sir Henry Wellcome Postdoctoral Fellowships have been announced. Subsequent to an initial offer of 20 awards, 17 newly qualified postdoctoral researchers have been selected to receive support in developing their research careers. Each four-year fellowship is worth £250,000. Award winners will liaise with supervisors at one or more institutions.
Award winner: Janine Coombes
Institutions: University of California, Berkley, and University of Oxford
Dynamic imaging of intestinal dendritic cells in oral infection
Award winner: Johanna L. Hoog
Institutions: University of Colorado and University of Oxford
Shape, form and function in kinetoplastid parasites: the subpellicular microtubule cytoskeleton
Award winner: Andreas Sonnen
Institutions: University of Brussels and University of Oxford
A systematic approach towards understanding innate immunity against trypanosomes
Award winner: Andrew J. Wood
Institutions: University of Birmingham and University of California, Berkeley
Investigating X chromosome hyper-expression in the animal kingdom: a comparative approach
Award winner: Matthew Gold
Institutions: Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Portland, Oregon and Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute, Toronto
Control of synaptic transmission by scaffold proteins
Award winner: Rebecca K. Holmes
Institutions: University of California, San Francisco and University of Edinburgh
Coupling mRNA processing events: Npl3 as a paradigm
Award winner: Rachel M. Freathy
Institutions: Universities of Exeter, Bristol, Chicago, Oxford and Northwestern University, Chicago
The role of maternal and offspring metabolic and anthropometric gene variants in foetal and childhood growth
Award winner: Pauline Speder
Institutions: Wellcome Trust/Cancer Research UK Gurdon Institute
Regulation of neural regeneration and cell fate in the central nervous system of Drosophila
Award winner: Misha B. Ahrens
Institutions: Princeton University and University of Cambridge
An integrative approach to finding the neural basis of timing
Award winner: Ede A. Rancz
Institutions: Rutgers University and University College London
Vestibular representation in the mammalian cortex
Award winner: Clare Howarth
Institutions: Universities of British Columbia and Oxford
The role of astrocytes in the vascular response to neural activity
Award winner: Zoe Michailidou
Institution: University of Edinburgh
Investigating the role of the HIF system in adipose tissue in obesity
Award winner: Joseph Burgoyne
Institutions: Boston University School of Medicine and King's College London
Protein kinase G Ia: from novel substrates, structural analysis and cGMP-independent activation to defining how it mediates cardioprotection
Award winner: Emma Hodson-Tole
Institution: Manchester Metropolitan University
Skeletal muscle: dynamic form and function
Award winner: Martin J. Bishop
Institutions: University of Oxford and University of Calgary
A combined computational and experimental investigation into the role of histo-anatomical heterogeneity, within and between individuals, in the mechanisms of initiation and maintenance of ventricular fibrillation
Award winner: Marie-Jo Brion
Institutions: Universidade Federal de Pelotas, Brazil, and University of Bristol
Public-health effects of modifiable maternal exposures: offspring obesity and cognitive health in two cohorts in the UK and Brazil
Award winner: James Kirkbride
Institution: University of Cambridge
Social epidemiology of psychoses in East Anglia: disentangling poverty, migration and urbanicity
Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council
The BBSRC has announced a £4 million public-private research partnership to improve understanding of diet and health issues. The Diet and Health Research Industry Club - a partnership of three research councils and 15 food and drink companies - will bring together firms, public research funders and scientists.
Award winner: Ian Norton
Institution: University of Birmingham
Value: £342,689
Self-structuring foods with slow burn for control of satiety
Award winner: Jeffrey Brunstrom
Institution: University of Bristol
Value: £379,247
Understanding decisions about portion size: the key to acceptable foods that reduce energy intake?
Award winners: Roger Parker and Susan Fairweather-Tait
Institutions: Institute of Food Research and University of East Anglia
Value: £347,914.79 and £33,1.95
Enhancing delivery of minerals using multifunctional carriers
Award winner: John Blundell
Institution: University of Leeds
Value: £540,555.69
Drivers of eating behaviour during chronic overconsumption: role of food hedonics (liking and wanting) and peptide biomarkers on satiation and satiety.
Award winner: David Thompson
Institution: University of Manchester
Value: £573,579.22
Defining the gut-to-brain signalling mechanisms underlying responses to nutrients
Award winner: Lesley Rhodes, Gary Williamson, and Anna Nicolaou
Institution: Universities of Manchester, Leeds, and Bradford
Value: £306,428.34, £124,486.75 and £57,177.76
The effect of dietary bioactive compounds on skin health in humans in vivo
Award winner: Jeffrey Pearson
Institution: Newcastle University
Value: £401,226.80
Bioactive Alginates and Obesity
Award winner: Jeremy P E Spencer
Institution: University of Reading
Value: £322,832.86
The Impact of Cocoa Processing on Flavanol Content, Absorption and Health Effects
Award winner: Paul Thornalley
Institution: University of Warwick
Value: £696,831.30
Dietary activators of antioxidant response element-linked gene expression for good vascular health
UK Resource Centre for Women in Science, Engineering and Technology and L’Oreal UK
The UK Resource Centre for Women in Science, Engineering and Technology, working in partnership with L’Oreal, the Royal Institution of Great Britain and the UK National Commission for Unesco have announced the winners of the UK and Ireland Fellowships for Women in Science 2008. The £15,000 fellowships are designed to encourage greater participation of women in science by providing funds for female postdoctoral researchers.
Award winner: Sarah Bridle
Institution: University College London
Dr Bridle will use her fellowship to support her research using cosmic gravitational lensing to measure dark energy in the universe, to understand how the universe appears to be accelerating in its expansion.
Award winner: Ashleigh Griffin
Institution: University of Edinburgh
Dr Griffin’s fellowship will support her research on social behaviour in microbes; what kind of social strategies are advantageous in populations of bacteria infecting, for example, the lungs of cystic fibrosis patients. Her work will help to also understand why cells are able to switch off growth and become resistant to antibiotics.
Award winner: Sarah Reece
Institution: University of Edinburgh
Dr Mather will use her award to support her work on volcanic emissions to help determine which volcanoes worldwide may be the source of potentially harmful chemicals to the environment
Award winner: Tamsin Mather
Institution: University of Oxford
Dr Reece will use her fellowship to support her research at the Institutes of Evolution, Immunology and Infection Research, University of Oxford. Her work will apply evolutionary questions to malaria parasites to discover how they maximise their chances of infecting mosquitoes.
