Grant winners

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.