Jason Swedlow, Terry Smith, and Paul Crocker, three scientists in the Wellcome Trust Biocentre at the University of Dundee, have secured prestigious 5-year Senior Research Fellowships in Basic Biomedical Sciences from the Wellcome Trust totalling over £3.4m.
The Fellowships are awarded on a competitive basis with only 15 awards being made this year for the whole of the UK, of which Dundee received three. Jason Swedlow and Terry Smith have been awarded a Senior Fellowship for the first time.
Jason Swedlow is a Principal Investigator in the Division of Gene Regulation and Expression, where his laboratory is interested in how chromosomes are assembled during cell division. This process is a known target for anti-cancer therapeutics. Jason uses both biochemistry and digital microscopy to understand how chromosomes are organised. In the last few years, they have developed biochemical methods that allow them to probe directly the molecules that are associated with mitotic chromosomes, and have also applied high resolution digital fluorescence microscopy to the study of the structure of the mitotic chromosome. Jason, a citizen of the USA, came to the University of Dundee in 1998, having previously worked at the University of California, San Francisco and Harvard Medical School.
Terry Smith works to find effective treatments against tropical diseases, including African sleeping sickness. He explains: "There are currently no effective treatments against many debilitating and fatal diseases caused by insect-transmitted protozoan parasites that are found throughout the tropics. A significant proportion of the parasite's cell-surface is covered in molecules containing "GPI" anchors, which have been shown to be essential for parasite survival. The enzymes that make GPI anchors - especially Trypanosoma brucei - the cause of African sleeping sickness, are proven targets for therapeutic drugs. The major focus of my research is to characterise the enzymes involved in providing molecules required for GPI anchor biosynthesis. Presently very little is known about these processes and detailed structural and mechanistic studies should reveal novel therapeutic targets."
The Wellcome Senior Fellowship award will allow Terry to establish his own research group, based in the Division of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Microbiology, where he has worked since leaving Cornell University, NewYork in 1994.
Dr Paul Crocker has had his Senior Fellowship renewed for a further 5 years in recognition of his research achievements and the promise of his future research proposals.
Paul is a Principal Investigator in the Division of Cell Biology and Immunology. Research in the Crocker laboratory is focussed on a newly-discovered family of carbohydrate-binding proteins called 'siglecs'. These proteins are expressed on key cells of the immune system that form the first line of defence against invasion by potential pathogens. Interactions between carbohydrates and siglecs are thought to be important in the fine-tuning of our immune system. This allows it to mount an effective attack on the invading pathogens whilst leaving the cells of our own bodies unscathed. Paul Crocker came to Dundee from the University of Oxford in 1997.
Director of the Wellcome Trust Biocentre, Professor Sir Philip Cohen welcomed the awards saying: "Jason, Terry and Paul thoroughly deserve this funding for the outstanding research they have carried out over the past few years. These awards demonstrate the quality of the scientists we have at the University of Dundee.
By Jenny Marra, Press Officer 01382 344910 j.m.marra@dundee.ac.uk