Five University of Dundee staff, including Principal and Vice Chancellor Sir Alan Langlands, are among the "60 outstanding individuals" today elected to Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
The five, who come from a diversity of disciplines including biomedical sciences, dentistry and civil engineering, have been made fellows for their national and international standing based on the quality of innovative contributions to their fields, their professional standing and their achievement in public service.
They are:
Dario Alessi, bioscience - Principal Investigator and honorary reader at
the MRC Protein Phosphorylation Unit at the Wellcome Trust Biocentre,
University of Dundee
Julian Blow, bioscience - Director Cancer Research UK chromosome replication research group and senior lecturer at the Wellcome Trust Biocentre, University of Dundee
Sir Alan Langlands - Principal and Vice Chancellor, University of Dundee
Professor Nigel Pitts, dentistry - Professor of Dental health and honorary consultant in Dental public health; Director of the Centre for Dental Innovations, University of Dundee
Professor Alan Vardy, civil engineering - research professor in civil engineering, University of Dundee.
Secretary of the University Dr David Duncan said: "Dundee clearly attracts some of the best minds in Scotland. We are delighted to see our colleagues recognised in this way. This five fold honour represents a cross section of the quality work which is re-calibrating Dundee's standing nationally and internationally."/ends
Notes for Editors
Dr Dario Alessi - Winner of the Eppendorf Young European scientist of
the year in 2000, he is leading a research team in understanding
insulin regulated signalling pathways in the fight against diabetes.
Dario is one of eight members of the School of Life Sciences to win the
Colworth medal in 1999 for young scientists under the age of 36.
Professor Julian Blow is Director of the Cancer Research UK Chromosome Replication Research Group and was awarded a personal chair of chromosome maintenance by the University in February. Dr Blow's aim is to understand in detail the mechanisms that ensure precise duplication of chromosomal DNA. This may identify targets for anti-cancer drugs. In 1996 Julian Blow was named young scientist of the year by the British Association for Cancer Research/Zeneca.
Sir Alan Langlands is the Principal and Vice Chancellor of the University of Dundee. Alan was the Chief Executive of the National Health Service in England from 1994-2000 where, as the Secretary of State's principal policy adviser for the NHS, he was accountable to Parliament for the effective stewardship of a £40 billion revenue budget. He received a Knighthood in the Queen's Birthday Honours List (1998) for his services to the NHS. In the past 12 months Langlands has also received honorary fellowships from the Royal College of Physicians, the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and the Royal College of General Practitioners.
Professor Nigel Pitts is Director of the Chief Scientist Office's Dental Health Services Research Unit (DHSRU) at the University, as well as being Director of the Centre for Dental Innovations. He trained in Dentistry at the University of London, before spending five years at the University of Hong Kong, prior to taking up his Chief Scientist Office post in Dundee at the end of 1985.
Professor Alan Vardy is research professor in civil engineering where his research interests lie principally in the area of fluid mechanics. Some of the most productive research has been in the field of unsteady skin friction in transient flows in pipelines.