MCRC Career Development Awards and Prizes
Leeds Cardiovascular Young Investigator Prizes
The prizes are to: Recognize important contributions of young investigators and strengthen their CVs; Encourage research excellence and high quality outputs in the cardiovascular field.
The prizes were for the best original research articles (full papers). Papers related to the cardiovascular system, were carried out significantly at Leeds, and were published in 2008. Awardees must have been studying or working at the University of Leeds at the time of application. Each individual submitted a maximum of one paper. Up to 3 prizes may were awarded, each worth £50.
Papers were assessed by a Panel comprising the MCRC Executive and an external referee. Factors taken into consideration included the Panel’s judgment of the scientific quality, importance and competitive nature of the work, and contribution of the applicant.
Prize funds are from the MCRC, kindly supported by the University of Leeds. Application forms can be obtained from the following link: MCRC Young Investigator Prize Application
The award winners this year had outstanding papers accepted in leading international journals including Nature. Congratulations go to Dr. Jing Li and Dr. Piruthivi Sukumar who are both part supervised by Professor David Beech.
Jing Li, Piruthivi Sukumar, Carol J. Milligan, Bhaskar Kumar, Zhi-Yong Ma,
Christopher M. Munsch, Lin-Hua Jiang, Karen E. Porter, David J. Beech, "Interactions, Functions, and Independence of Plasma
Membrane STIM1 and TRPC1 in Vascular Smooth
Muscle Cells" Circulation Research 108:e97-e104. PDF
Shang-Zhong Xu, Piruthivi Sukumar, Fanning Zeng, Jing Li, Amit Jairaman, Anne English,
Jacqueline Naylor, Coziana Ciurtin, Yasser Majeed, Carol J. Milligan, Yahya M. Bahnasi, Eman Al-Shawaf,
Karen E. Porter, Lin-Hua Jiang, Paul Emery, Asipu Sivaprasadarao & David J. Beech, "TRPC channel activation by extracellular thioredoxin" Nature 451: 69-73. PDF
MCRC Career-Development Grants
The purpose of the career development grant scheme is to provide initial funding for small projects and travel awards. The current round of funding has past and numerous excellent researchers were awarded 'pump-priming' funds for various projects.
Papers were assessed by a Panel comprising the MCRC Executive and an external referee. Factors taken into consideration included the Panel’s judgment of the scientific quality, importance and competitive nature of the work, and comprehensive outline of the funding initiative. Application forms can be obtained from the following link: Career Development Grant Application
2009 MCRC Award Winners
David Benoist
The MCRC funding will be used to cover the expenses of an international collaborative visit in a renowned laboratory (Inserm U637, Montpellier, France) to learn new techniques (measurement of skinned myocyte force-PCa relationships and in vivo echocardiography). This visit aims to a better understanding of the EC coupling alteration during right ventricular hypertrophy and failure.
Paul Cordell
The MCRC grant funding Paul recently received will be used to generate further data for a grant application to investigate the subcellular trafficking of FXIII-A in monocyte-macrophages. Paul is a research fellow in the LIGHT working with Professor Peter Grant as part of the Cardiovascular and Diabetes Research group.
Carol Milligan
The MCRC grant funding will go towards the investigation of a novel mechanism involving lipid sensing in mouse monocytes/macrophages and human vascular smooth muscle cells. Carol is a research fellow in IMSB working with Professor David Beech.
Kirsten Riches
The MCRC grant will be used to purchase microarrays to analyse cytoskeletal differences between smooth muscle cells from non-diabetic and T2DM patients. This will allow Kirsten to determine if inherent abnormalities in particular genes can explain the aberrant behaviour of these cells in T2DM individuals. Kirsten is a research fellow in the LIGHT working with Dr. Karen Porter.
Shirley Uitte de Willige
The MCRC grant will be used to investigate the fibrinogen gamma’ content in human arterial clots vs. the arterial and venous circulation. The fibrinogen gamma' chain is an alternative splice variant of fibrinogen that has been shown to influence both arterial (increased levels) and venous (decreased levels) thrombosis risk. Shirley is a research fellow in the LIGHT working with Dr. Robert Arias.
Romana Mughal
The MCRC career development grant awarded July 2009, will be used to attend and present current data at the forthcoming 5th European meeting on vascular biology and medicine (EMVBM September 2009). Romana is a PhD student working with Dr. Karen Porter.
Rick Walton
The MCRC career development grant will be used to attend the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Conferences and a collaborative visit to the lab of Prof. Alena Talkachova at the University of Minnesota. Prof. Talkachova’s group is activelyinvestigating cardiac alternans occurring during rapid pacing and developed a unique technique to investigate the arrhythmogenic risk associated with alternans.