News
First funding for new group leaders in the School
Published on 10 February 2020
Megan Bergkessel and Leeanne McGurk have been awarded funding from the Springboard scheme of the Academy of Medical Sciences, which is designed to help early career researchers establish their independent research programmes.
Megan Bergkessel from Molecular Microbiology will receive £99,950 over two years to support measurements of metabolic activity in dormant or slowly growing bacteria. It is thought that bacteria in these states are able to survive antibiotic treatment and contribute to relapses of infections, so measuring and understanding the regulation of this activity could help to improve outcomes of antibiotic treatment.
Leeanne McGurk’s (Cell and Developmental Biology) funding will allow her to purchase key specialized equipment and hire a Research Assistant to work on the project focusing on age-related neurological disorders such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal degeneration (FTD). Leeanne explained, "Our preliminary work has identified a new set of stress-responsive proteins in that could potentially regulate ALS and FTD disease features. This project aims identify how these proteins may regulate disease and whether they may have therapeutic potential.”