Department of Medicine Announces Travel Award Winners

The Department of Medicine would like to congratulate the winners of the first Postdoctoral Travel Awards.

The awards were set up by the Early Career Committee using funds generously donated by the Department of Medicine to provide postdocs with travel, registration and childcare funds to attend conferences in the UK, Europe and worldwide. The initiative forms part of the Department’s Athena SWAN action plan.

Applicants were asked to submit an abstract and justification explaining why attendance at that conference is important to them and their development. The ECC received applications of an extremely high standard from across every division, showcasing the exciting work happening in the Department which made judging the applications a tough task for the panel.

The winning entry was submitted by Shea Hamilton, Research Fellow within the Division of Infectious Diseases, Paediatrics. Shea’s research focuses on identifying biomarkers, or specific proteins in blood, which can diagnose TB with better accuracy than is currently attainable. Her aim is to develop a rapid, cheap, point-of-care test in order to achieve same day treatment, reduction in inappropriate antibiotic use, and decreased spread of TB.

Second prize was awarded to Dr John McGonigle, Research Associate in the Division of Brain Sciences’ Centre for Neuropsychopharmacology. John’s research involves using brain imaging techniques to investigate both the mechanisms of, and treatments for, addiction. One of the ways he explores this is by examining the brains of those dependent on a substance such as alcohol. By analysing the synchrony of different regions of the brain at rest we can start to discover how communication within the brain may be impaired. The work John will be presenting relates to methodological issues around how these regions are delineated and compared between different people. Along with creating new collaborations John hopes to be able to bring back to Imperial the very latest developments in this young and fast moving field.

The third prize was awarded to Sara De Simoni, also a Research Associate in the Division of Brain Sciences in the Centre for Restorative Neurosciences. Sara told us about her work which focuses on using brain scanning techniques to investigate disruption to brain networks following traumatic brain injury (TBI): “Post-traumatic amnesia (PTA) is very common early after TBI. PTA is characterised by a confused, agitated state and pronounced problems in the ability to encode new memories. Recently, work on TBI patients suffering from PTA has generated extremely interesting findings, demonstrating a breakdown in the brain networks known to be involved in memory processing. In the future, the ability to quantify this disruption could dramatically accelerate the development of interventions aimed at protecting brain function or promoting repair after acute TBI.”

Sara will take her findings to the Society for Neuroscience (SFN) Conference, taking place in Washington, USA in November 2014. Shea will be attending the 45th Union World Conference on Tuberculosis and Lung Disease in Barcelona, Spain in October-November 2014. John will be attending the Fourth Biennial Conference on Resting Stale/ Brain Connectivity at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge Massachusetts, USA in September 2014.

Congratulations again to all three, we hope you will be the first of many!

The ECC will invite applications again later in the year with a deadline of 31st October 2014 for funding for conferences taking place between 1st January and 31st July 2015. Further information on how to apply is available here.

Check the DoMLife pages to see how Departmental Athena SWAN initiatives can benefit you.