ICB CDT student Mark Wilkinson has been awarded a BBSRC FTMA Innovation Placement and will spend 3 months attending the DDW unit at GSK, Madrid.

Institute of Chemical Biology (ICB) Centre of Doctoral Training (CDT) student Mark Wilkinson, who is currently a PhD student under the supervision of Professor Jake Baum and Professor Keith Willison, has been awarded a prestigious BBSRC Flexible Talent Mobility (FTMA) Innovation Placement. The BBSRC FTMA was set-up with the purpose of supporting the mobility of talented early career researchers, allowing the exchange of personnel, knowledge and skills between academic and industrial centres. 

Mark will be using his grant to attend the Diseases of the Developing World (DDW) unit at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) in Tres Cantos, Madrid for 3 months. The DDW is a world centre of excellence for the discovery and development of anti-infectives and new medicines primarily used to treat developing world diseases.

"I'll learn how the in vivo and in vitro techniques that I have learnt in my PhD are used in a drug development pipeline as well as unique models only available at GSK" Mark Wilkinson ICB CDT PhD student

Speaking about his award, Mark Wilkinson said “I got funding to cover my salary and living expenses to go to the Diseases of the Developing World (DDW) centre at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) in Madrid, strengthening pre-existing ties between the Baum lab and GSK. The proposed placement will provide me with a unique opportunity to learn the strategies used to miniaturise drug-screening assays to increase throughput. I'll learn how the in vivo and in vitro techniques that I have learnt in my PhD are used in a drug development pipeline as well as unique models only available at GSK (e.g. humanized mice models and organoid work). A key innovation area will be a new focus on liver stages of malaria infection, an area both GSK and the Baum lab are exploring. Within the three months proposed, I hope I'll be able to aid the DDW team in screening chemoprotective agents making direct use of some of the expertise gained in my master’s degree in Chemical Biology and PhD studies.”

BBSRC Flexible Talent Mobility Innovation Placement:

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/research-and-innovation/research-office/funder-information/funding-opportunities/internal-funding-opportunities/ftma/

Diseases of the Developing World Drug Discovery unit at GSK in Madrid:

https://www.gsk.com/en-gb/media/press-releases/gsk-and-tres-cantos-open-lab-foundation-announce-additional-5m-funding-for-open-innovation-research-in-diseases-impacting-the-developing-world/