Chelsea Brown, a PhD student in the Fullam Lab, won the Sir Howard Dalton Young Microbiologist of the Year for her talk entitled 'Modelling Mycobacterial Membranes: Anyone for PIMS?' at the 2023 Annual Microbiology conference. Chelsea presented her research to a panel of judges at the Microbiology Society Showcase on Tuesday 3 October 2023.

Sophie Jin is the 2022 recipient of the Brewster Scholarship. This is awarded to an SLS PhD student in their second year of research whose work relates to crop improvement. The scholarship is funded by a generous donation in memory of Dr Jim Brewster, a former member of Wellesbourne staff. Find out moreLink opens in a new window.

Chelsea Brown, a PhD student with Professor Phill Stansfeld and Dr Liz Fullam, has published a first author paper on tackling Tuberculosis (TB) by modelling mycobacterial membranes. TB rivals covid-19 as the biggest infectious disease killer of humans, claiming millions of lives each year. Now, ground-breaking research from the Universities of Warwick and Toulouse has identified a new method to help tackle this global issue.
Press ReleaseLink opens in a new window (30 January 2023)

Katie Mortimer, a Biomedical Science student who graduated in 2021, recently published a paper from the results of her third year project. The project on 'Impact of antihypertensive and antihyperlipidaemic drugs on neuronal stem cell function’ with Professor Johannes Boltze led to a first author publication in Frontiers in Molecular Neuroscience.
Read the paper.

Congratulations to our winners of the Warwick Awards for Teaching Excellence:

The WATE PGR SEM Faculty Award celebrates the exceptional work of colleagues at a very early stage, who teach and support learning in Science, Engineering and Medicine.
Winner - Niamh Harrington, a microbiologist who has just completed her PhD. Niamh's research is focused on the development of a pig lung model for bacterial infections in Cystic Fibrosis.

The WATE PGR Cross Faculty Award celebrates the exceptional work of colleagues at a very early stage in their academic career, recognising educators who work across Faculty boundaries supporting university-wide projects or by working in interdisciplinary ways.
 Commended - Zoi Ioannidou, third year MIBTP PhD student in Life Sciences. Zoi is currently studying on the Academic and Professional Pathway for Postgraduate Researchers who Teach (APP PGR) course.

In March, Sopida Wongwas, a second year PhD student in the Corre group, won the the poster prize in the Environmental category of the Royal Society of Chemistry's 2022 #RSCPoster Twitter Conference.
View the animated posterLink opens in a new window on 'Heterologous expression and engineering of Mycosporine-like amino-acid (MAA) biosynthetic gene clusters in Streptomyces hosts'.
Errant Science summarised Sopida's work in a cartoonLink opens in a new window.

The room was full of tension and enthusiasm on Wednesday 16 February as Warwick’s team, Pistils at Dawn, entered this year’s Botanical University Challenge (BUC). Pistils at Dawn fought well in the closely run competition, coming 11th out of the 18 institutions that entered. Only 4 points separated Pistils at Dawn from the top eight teams, which went on to compete in the finals on 23 February. The Challenge organiser, Dr Jonathan Mitchley sent team Pistils at Dawn “huge commiserations for such a close shave” and told the team to “be proud, very proud” as they were the first ever team to enter for the University of Warwick.
 
Co-captains Jamie Pike and Annabelle de Vries, along with Andy Gladman, Stefania Luca, and reserve Andis Gyori László, were quizzed on a broad range of botanical subjects including botanical literature and art, plant identification, and national flags! The team hopes to enter again next year, with eyes set on top place. You can see how well you fair and meet the teams by visiting the BUC YouTube channel.

Four female climate scientists from India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh (Maria Rehman, Mst Atikunnaher, Manpreet Kaur Saini and Udvashita Chakraborty) - who are currently pursuing postgraduate studies in SLS thanks to 'Women in STEM’ scholarships - share their experiences and reflections on the International Day of Women and Girls in Science.
Press release (11 February 2022)

On Friday 11 February, Anna Ceesay, a second year Biochemist, and Outreach Officer for Warwick's Biological Society, is joining a Virtual Q&A panel to celebrate Women in Science at Warwick. The day marks the sixth International Day of Women and Girls in Science; a day designed to promote full and equal access to, and participation in, science for women and girls. The live panel event will give the opportunity to meet some of the women in our Faculty of Science, Engineering and Medicine, and ask them any questions about Science at Warwick. Find out more

This year the Jim Brewster Scholarship has been awarded to Huidong Liu, a PhD student with Dr Steve Jackson. The scholarship is awarded to a School of Life Sciences PhD student in their second year of research, whose work relates to crop improvement. Huidong's PhD project is looking at 'Manipulation of flowering time in Carrot by gene editing'.
Find out more