Monash-Warwick Alliance joint professor Sébastien Perrier has been awarded a Wolfson Research Merit by the Royal Society for his ‘molecular engineering’ work - just two months after he was given the prestigious Le Fèvre Memorial Prize by the Australian Academy of Science.

A second researcher, Professor Mohan Balasubramanian, has also been given a Wolfson Research Merit Award, moving from National University of Singapore to the University of Warwick to take up the award position.

Based in Warwick Medical School, Professor Balasubramanian works on Cytokinetic actomyosin ring structure, assembly and function.

Professor Perrier is one of the first joint research appointments by the Monash-Warwick Alliance. He divides his time between the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences and the University of Warwick’s Department of Chemistry.

Professor Perrier has been given the prestigious Wolfson Research Merit award for his work in polymer science, specifically in ‘molecular engineering’. The award recognises his research on organic nanotubes, innovative materials which can be used in areas such as water purification, gas storage, CO2 capture or as biosensors, for example for glucose monitoring in diabetes patients or as drug delivery vectors to transport the active agents of drugs to specific cells.

The Wolfson award, which recognises outstanding scientific achievement, comes shortly after Professor Perrier was awarded the 2013 Le Fèvre Memorial Prize by the Australian Academy of Science.

The R.J.W. Le Fèvre Memorial Prize commemorates the work of the late Professor R.J.W. Le Fèvre, FAA, FRS and recognises outstanding research in chemistry by scientists under 40 years of age.

Professor Perrier said: “I am honoured to receive the prestigious Wolfson Research Merit award and to join the list of outstanding previous awardees.”

“I am particularly thrilled to have received both the Le Févre Memorial Prize and the Wolfson Research Merit award in the same academic year. The vision of the Alliance is to bring together great science from Warwick and Monash, and it is exciting to see polymer science being part of it.”

“I also want to take this opportunity to thank the many research students, postdoctoral researchers, mentors, colleagues and collaborators, whose contributions enables me to pursue inter-disciplinary and cutting-edge research.”

Professor Andrew Coats, Director of the Monash Warwick Alliance said :”This second award to Sébastien Perrier in such a short period and from the opposite ends of the world is both a dramatic tribute to his achievements and also a vivid marker of the impact the revolutionary Monash-Warwick Alliance is having on research impact. The world’s first truly deep two University alliance is attracting high quality researchers and teachers with the ability to redefine what Universities can do to globalise their influence”

Jointly funded by the Wolfson Foundation and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), the Wolfson Research Merit Award scheme aims to provide universities with additional support to enable them to attract science talent from overseas and retain respected UK scientists of outstanding achievement and potential.

ENDS

For further information please contact University of Warwick press office on 02476 524668 or press at warwick dot ac dot uk

For further information please contact University of Warwick press office on 02476 524668 or press at warwick dot ac dot uk