Grant winners

WELLCOME TRUST

Investigator Awards

Investigators will receive sums ranging from £500,000 over three years to more than £3 million over seven years.

• Award winner: Finn Werner

• Institution: University College London

An integrated study of RNAP transcription

• Award winner: Steven W. Kennerley

• Institution: University College London

Neuronal mechanisms underlying value-based decision-making and action selection

MARIE CURIE CANCER CARE RESEARCH PROGRAMME

• Award winner: Jane Seymour

• Institution: University of Nottingham

• Value: £163,760

Understanding the role of nurses in decisions to use anticipatory prescriptions to manage symptoms and distress in the last days of life: a prospective community-based study using mixed methods

• Award winner: Debra Howell

• Institution: University of York

• Value: £269,728

Exploration of factors associated with place of care and death in patients with haematological malignancies

• Award winners: Maureen Coombs and Alison Richardson

• Institution: University of Southampton

• Value: £166,825

An investigation about transferring patients in critical care home to die: experiences, attitudes, population characteristics and practice

ACTION MEDICAL RESEARCH

• Award winner: John Marshall

• Institution: University College London

• Value: £124,840

Blindness: treating childhood cataracts

• Award winner: Richard Apps

• Institution: University of Bristol

• Value: £98,120

Brain tumour removal: minimising brain damage

• Award winner: Marianne Thoresen

• Institution: University of Bristol

• Value: £125,341

Birth asphyxia: preventing brain damage

• Award winner: Fiona Denison

• Institution: University of Edinburgh

• Value: £96,450

Pregnancy complications: using new imaging techniques to predict problems

• Award winner: Andres Lopez Bernal

• Institution: University of Bristol

• Value: £195,773

Preterm labour: studying the actions of oxytocin

• Award winner: Lucy Raymond

• Institution: University of Cambridge

• Value: £165,529

Stillbirth: investigating the causes

IN DETAIL

• Award winner: Rose Zamoyska

• Institution: University of Edinburgh

Mechanisms that regulate T-cell responses and their failure in autoimmunity

Immune responses are balanced through cross-talk between tyrosine kinases and phosphatases immediately downstream of T-cell receptors. Changes in expression and point mutations in these enzymes have been linked to autoimmunity. This project will explore how these mutations perturb homeostasis and lead to a failure of regulation, and at what point such perturbations tip into immunopathology and autoimmunity. A combined approach will be used, involving: modelling T-cell function and regulation in vitro and in vivo; mass spectrometry to identify global changes in the cell associated with disregulated T-cell activity; and analysis of the role of mRNA translational regulation as a control point in lymphocyte homeostasis.