Grant winners – 2 March 2017

National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement & Reduction of Animals in Research

Research grants

• Award winner: Riccardo Storchi
• Institution: University of Manchester
• Value: £218,946

Interrogating the mouse visual system by automated analysis of voluntary behaviour

• Award winner: Maria Correa
• Institution: Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute
• Value: £251,248

Intestinal organoids as a replacement strategy to unravel early host intestinal epithelia interactions with whipworms

• Award winner: Deepali Pal
• Institution: Newcastle University
• Value: £112,473

An industrial standard cancer drug development platform using human induced pluripotent stem cell technology

Natural Environment Research Council

Research grants

• Award winner: Jonathan Crosier
• Institution: University of Manchester
• Value: £609,422

Parameterising ice clouds using airborne observations and triple-frequency Doppler radar data

• Award winner: Jagroop Pandhal
• Institution: University of Sheffield
• Value: £95,726

Detoxification and multi-resource recovery from landfill leachate

• Award winner: Richard Bardgett
• Institution: University of Manchester
• Value: £251,906

Resilience and regime shifts in peatland microbial communities: implications for soil functioning

• Award winner: David Reay
• Institution: University of Edinburgh
• Value: £40,163

Our phosphorus future

Royal Society

Industry Fellowships

• Award winner: Rustam Stolkin
• Institution: University of Birmingham
• Value: £128,520

Advanced robotic manipulation for nuclear decommissioning

Newton Advanced Fellowships

• Award winner: Varodom Charoensawan
• Institution: Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute
• Value: £74,000

Deciphering transcription factor-nucleosome dynamics at single cell resolution

• Award winner: Cheng Tung Chong
• Institution: University of Cambridge
• Value: £36,500

Liquid aerosol-flame interaction on flame propagation, reaction rate and extinction

In detail

European Research Council

Starting grant

Award winner: Tamar Makin

Institution: University of Oxford

Value: £1,499,406

Embodied Tech: can humans embody augmentative robotics technology?

Wearable robotics are designed to enhance our physical abilities. While much funding is dedicated to developing such technologies, it is taken for granted that they will fuse seamlessly with our bodies (embodiment). Little research has been dedicated to how wearable robotics may be supported by the brain; this would require the brain to share resources – originally meant for control of the body – to operate the technology. Dr Makin will draw on neuroscience and experimental psychology to study the conditions necessary for wearable robotic technology to be embodied. She will focus on prosthetic limbs as a model to address questions about embodied technology, such as what conditions are necessary to consider an artificial limb a body part. It is hoped the project will guide how to incorporate robotics into human body representation more generally.