Grant winners

THE WELLCOME TRUST

The Wellcome Trust has announced three research grants intended to strengthen its work exploring the ethical issues that arise in the development and the delivery of healthcare. The awards have been granted to enhance collaboration and support new research fellowships and studentships.

- Award winner: Clare Williams

Institution: King's College London

Value: £820,000

The shifting moral landscapes as research progresses in areas such as human embryonic stem-cell research and neuroscience. What are the acceptable boundaries of science and medicine? Will scientific advances change what it means to be human?

- Award winner: Julian Savulescu

Institution: Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, University of Oxford

Value: £820,000

The new discipline of neuroethics: problems for ethics, research and clinical practice in areas such as addiction, criminal responsibility, treatment of vegetative patients, medical decision-making and enhancing normal cognitive capacity.

- Award winner (institution): Theresa Marteau (King's College London), Richard Ashcroft (University of London) and Adam Oliver (London School of Economics)

Value: £850,000

Use of financial incentives in UK healthcare, and when it is right to use financial incentives to improve health. The issue is examined in the context of obesity, health in pregnancy, medication for psychotic disorders and substance misuse.

DR HADWEN TRUST FOR HUMANE RESEARCH

- Award winner: Oliver Hanemann

Institution: Peninsula Medical School

Value: £124,090

Development and use of a human-cell culture model to test new therapies for neurofibromatosis type 2 tumours and provide an alternative to lengthy animal tests.

- Award winner: Amanda Ellison

Institution: University of Durham

Value: £104,351

Human brain research with dual-site transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) as an alternative to invasive brain-damaging experiments on non-human primates.

- Award winner: Craig Winstanley

Institution: University of Liverpool

Value: £134,954

Artificial sputum as an alternative to animals in studying bacterial population response to challenge with antibiotics in cystic fibrosis.

- Award winner: Tom Solomon

Institution: University of Liverpool

Value: £134,050

Development and use of a blood-brain barrier model to study viral encephalitis in the test tube instead of in animals.

- Award winner: Sarah Herrick

Institution: University of Manchester

Value: £122,322

Development of a three-dimensional human airway model as an alternative to animal studies to understand control of mucus production in asthma.

ACTION MEDICAL RESEARCH

Action Medical Research has announced three research training fellowships for 2008, to aid career development into medical research.

- Award winner: Tracey Mills

Institution: University of Manchester

Value: £160,244

Foetal growth restriction.

- Award winner: Thomas Hiemstra

Institution: University of Cambridge

Value: £200,906

Investigating how kidney stones develop.

- Award winner: Manju Kurian

Institution: University of Birmingham

Value: £135,648

Investigating infantile spasms and MRST syndrome.