Grant winners - 21 February 2013

European Commission

Marie Curie Fellowship

• Award winner: Andrew Sutherland
• Institution: Aston University
• Value: £185,026

Polymers containing rhenium or molybdenum inorganic clusters for materials and biomedical imaging applications

Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council

First grant

• Award winner: Donna Arnold
• Institution: University of Kent
• Value: £78,794

Multiferroic behaviour in A- and B-site cation ordered perovskites

Standard grant

• Award winner: Kate Bedford
• Institution: University of Kent
• Value: £533,292

A full house: developing a new socio-legal theory of global gambling regulation

Economic and Social Research Council

Future Research Leaders Scheme

• Award winner: Shailen Nandy
• Institution: University of Bristol
• Value: £156,758

Are we there yet? Using the Bristol Approach to examine trends in absolute poverty in sub-Saharan Africa between 1995 and 2015

• Award winner: Julius Mugwagwa
• Institution: The Open University
• Value: £163,322

Innovative spending: what should money be spent on to make global health innovations more effective in developing countries?

• Award winner: Matthew Rablen
• Institution: Brunel University
• Value: £166,096

Optimal audit portfolio design for a tax authority

DFID-ESRC Growth Research Programme

• Award winner: Christopher Garforth
• Institution: University of Reading
• Value: £396,645

Innovation systems, agricultural growth and rural livelihoods in East Africa

• Award winner: Arjan Verschoor
• Institution: University of East Anglia
• Value: £348,444

A behavioural economic analysis of agricultural investment decisions in Uganda

Leverhulme Trust

Research project grants

Sciences

• Award winner: Isaac Kuo-Kang Liu
• Institution: University of Warwick
• Value: £211,105

Multi-scale biomechanical investigation of engineered tissue

• Award winner: Ian Russell
• Institution: University of Brighton
• Value: £193,688

Exploiting acoustic distortion by mosquitoes to listen on the wing

• Award winner: Carmen Molina-Paris
• Institution: University of Leeds
• Value: £245,031

Vascular receptor-ligand programming: stochastic modelling of cellular fate

In detail

Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council

Award winners: Malcolm East and Howard Barton

Institution: University of Southampton

Value: £287,000

Study of the role of anionic lipids in cell signalling: a mechanism for the modulation of ABC multidrug transporters

This research project is aimed at making drugs more effective. “We are interested in the role of ‘transporters’ which remove unwanted material from cells,” Dr East said. “Besides ejecting waste material, cells also remove drugs, which makes them less effective as treatments. We believe that lipids within cell membranes may control this activity.” Understanding these mechanisms could suggest ways of improving the effectiveness of antibiotics, anti-malarial drugs and cancer treatments.