Research Projects
In Phase 1, the Network awarded 47 Post Doctoral Research Projects over 4 rounds:
Round 4 Funded Projects
The Network awarded 15 round 4 research project grants. These included (PI and title):
Prof Sheldon, Countering the unrestrained inflammation of sepsis by targeting the JAK-STAT pathway in human macrophages
Prof Riccardi, Addressing an unmet medical need: developing inhaled calcilytics for steroid-resistant asthma
Dr Fallis, Long Life Imaging Probes for Dementia Patient Stratification
Dr Fallis, 18F-Gemcitabine as Diagnostic Tool in Personalised Chemotherapy
Prof Brambilla, Validation in rodent models of a novel approach to treat mood disorders based on ERK signalling stimulation
Prof Aeschlimann, A new angle to diagnosis and treatment of gluten related disorders
Dr Peall, Development of a Drosophila melanogaster model for SGCE mutation positive Myoclonus Dystonia
Dr Westwell, Chimeric phosphoramidate ProTides as anticancer and antiviral agents with fluorescent probes.
Dr Staples, Targeting Homologous Recombination to sensitise cancer cells to DNA-damaging agents
Prof Gumbleton, Development of Novel BMA-sulfobetaine Nanoparticle Delivery system to treat chronic wound infections
Dr Gwenin, The first preclinical analysis for a novel magnetically directed cancer treatment
Dr Loveridge, Novel antibacterial and antifungal natural products from Pseudomonas mesoacidophila
Prof Casini, Targeting G-quadruplex nucleic acid structures with caffeine gold compounds for cancer treatment
Dr Westwell, Developing Bcl3 inhibitors as anti-metastatic drug candidates
Dr Brancale, Development of a safer method for corneal stromal photo-crosslinking to stop the progression of keratoconus or to treat bacterial corneal infections
Round 3 Funded Projects
The Network awarded 10 round 3 research project grants. These included (PI and title):
Dr Gwenin, A rapid point of care system to manage/monitor drug treatment in therapeutically relevant mycobacterial infections
Prof O’Donnell, Development of new prothrombotic lipids for haemostatic applications
Prof Hall, Investigating the potential of the sphingosine-1-phosphate receptor 1 modulators for the treatment of psychiatric disorders.
Prof Piguet, Anti-viral activity of ProTide derivatives on human T cells
Dr Rozanowska, Novel modulators of the visual cycle for treatment of retinal degenerations
Dr Kidd, Investigating a novel therapy for Alzheimer’s disease in a mouse model of amyloid pathology
Dr Clarkson, Sensitizing to radiotherapy: ore-clinical evaluation of a novel indication for adjuvant bcl3i
Prof Dale, Establishing a screen for the WNT-STOP mitotic signalling pathway
Prof Wilkinson, Expression and activity determination of novel cloned antibiofilm peptides
Dr Westwell, Advancing analogues of a novel cFLIP inhibitor which sensitises breast cancer cells and cancer stem cells to TRAIL
Round 2 Funded Projects
The Network awarded 11 round 2 research project grants. These included (PI and title):
- Prof McGuigan, The design, Synthesis and evaluation of novel agents acting in the CNS
- Dr Francis, Optimisation of T-cell metabolism for anti-cancer vaccination
- Dr Parker, Developing targeted virotherapies for advanced, platinum resistant ovarian cancer.
- Prof Allemann, Anti-inflammatory calpain inhibitor leads
- Dr Brancale, Discovery and development of a novel therapeutic for the treatment of inflammatory lung disorders
- Dr Gonzalez, Rational design of antibody drug conjugate targets – unlocking a goldmine and war chest.
- Dr Nishio-Ayre, Delivery of osteogenic molecules from acrylic bone cement to encourage regenerative bone repair around cemented joint replacements.
- Dr Loveridge, Lytic transglycosylases – a potential Achilles’ heel for antibiotic-resistant bacteria?
- Dr Westwell, Discovery of novel site-specific FAK inhibitors for potential treatment of metastatic breast cancer
- Dr Wang, Modelling motor neuron disease using patient derived iPS cells for novel therapeutic discovery
- Dr Patel, Development of novel CD200:CD200R Blockade cancer immunotherapy
Round 1 Funded Projects
In February 2014 the Network launched a Postdoctoral project grant (fellowship) round. The Network funded 11 research projects. These included (PI and title):
- Prof Jiang, Evaluation of Transglutaminase-4 as a therapeutic and target and diagnostic tool in human prostate cancer.
- Dr Bugert, Mechanism of action of [L] ddBCNAs as novel cell-targeting antivirals
- Dr Prokopovich, Nanocarrier controlled delivery of antibiotics from acrylic bone cement
- Prof. Clarke, Developing a stem-cell containing 3D culture model for pre-clinical studies of colorectal cancer therapeutics
- Dr Gwenin, Optimising cellular uptake of enzyme/gold-coated magnetic nanoparticle conjugates
- Dr Huws, Further prospecting and characterisation of novel antimicrobials from bovine metagenomes
- Prof. Conlan, Nanoparticle delivery of epigenetic modifiers: a targeted approach for Endometrial Cancer treatment.
- Prof. Dyson, Bacterial-mediated RNA interference as a new therapy to target advanced prostate cancer
- Dr Fallis, Multi-Modal Theranostics (MMTs) – Towards Personalized Cancer Therapies
- Dr Cai, Targeting αB-crystallin (CRYAB): A possible novel strategy to impede triple-negative breast cancer growth
- Dr Jenkins, Development of human liver tissue models for drug safety assessment.
All Phase 1 Network funds are currently closed.
