2021 EMCRA Collaborative Award: Winners

Our congratulations to the EMCRA (Early-Mid Career Researchers Association) Collaborative Award Winners for 2021

It is with great pleasure that we announce the winners of the 2021 SBS-EMCRA (Early-Mid Career Researchers Association) Collaborative Award. This seed funding was established to promote collaboration between Level A & B postdocs in the School of Biomedical Sciences. Each application was required to have 2-3 postdocs from at least two different departments in the School, on a project of their own devising.

In 2021, we received 10 eligible applications from a total of 22 applicants. The applications were of incredible quality, reflecting the exceptional talent of the postdocs in our School. We thank all applicants for their applications and are pleased to provide detailed feedback on each application. We are delighted to be able to award $15,000 funding to each of the following four projects.

The winners are:

Dr Miranda Pitt (Department of Microbiology and Immunology) & Dr Emma McHugh (Department of Biochemistry and Pharmacology) for their project: “Mapping mRNA modifications in the human malaria parasite”

Dr Kevin Watt (Department of Anatomy and Physiology) & Dr Hamid Soleimaninejad (Department of Biochemistry and Pharmacology) for their project: “A method to assess heterogeneity in transcriptional networks in skeletal muscle”

Dr Jeffrey Liddell (Department of Biochemistry & Pharmacology) & Dr Michael Morgan (Department of Anatomy & Physiology) for their project: “Investigating CuII(atsm) as a treatment for osteoarthritis”

Dr Abdou Hachani (Department of Microbiology and Immunology) & Dr Ellie Cho (Department of Biochemistry and Pharmacology) for their project: “Uncovering the dynamic role of nasal cilia during bacterial colonisation”

We would also like to formally acknowledge Dr Amar Abdullah and Dr Annabell Bachem whose application was ranked highly enough to be successful in being awarded funding, however, unfortunately, had to decline the award this year.

Congratulations to the winners, and thank-you again to everyone who submitted an application.

To stay on top of EMCRA’s activities, follow us on Twitter (@sbsemcra) or Facebook (facebook.com/sbsemcra), or email us at sbs-emcra@unimelb.edu.au.

Regards,

Claire, Justin and Amar

2021 EMCRA Co-chairs, on behalf of the 2021 EMCRA steering committee