Future Leaders Fellowships for three UofG researchers
Published: 18 July 2024
Researchers from three of the University of Glasgow’s colleges have been awarded Future Leaders Fellowships by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).
Researchers from three of the University of Glasgow’s colleges have been awarded Future Leaders Fellowships by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).
Dr Zoi Diamantopoulou, Dr Michael Howcroft, Dr Will Peveler are among 68 leading researchers who have been named as recipients of the prestigious fellowships today. The 68 new fellows will share £104m in new funding from UKRI.
Future Leaders Fellowships support talented people in universities, businesses, and other research and innovation environments. They also allow universities and businesses to develop their most talented early career researchers and innovators or to attract new people to their organisations, including from overseas.
The aim of the scheme is to develop the next wave of world-class research and innovation leaders in academia and business.
Dr Zoi Diamantopoulou is a cancer biologist whose research seeks to better understand metastasis, the spread of cancer cells to other parts of the body. Metastasis is the main reason for cancer-related deaths and presents a challenge to cancer treatment due to the absence of effective anti-metastatic therapies.
Recently, Dr Diamantopoulou discovered that metastasis is regulated by the circadian rhythm – the internal clock our body has developed to synchronise and adjust its functions to the daily changes in the environment. She found that circulating tumour cells (CTCs) – cancer cells that escape from the tumour, which enter the blood circulation, travel through the body and form new tumours in different organs – are generated and spread predominantly during sleep.
Building on these important findings, Dr Diamantopoulou’s Fellowship award will be focused on investigating how time of day controls metastasis across various cancers to develop time-defined approaches for detecting and treating metastatic cancers.
Dr Diamantopoulou said: “I am delighted to receive a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship (FLF). This will allow me to return to the UK and establish my own independent research group at the CRUK Scotland Institute, affiliated with the School of Cancer Sciences at the University of Glasgow. The globally renowned expertise of the CRUK Scotland Institute in studying metastasis using preclinical mouse models, combined with the academic clinicians at the University of Glasgow provides the ideal environment for me and my team to develop this innovative programme and address the big challenge of metastasis.”
Dr William Peveler, of the School of Chemistry, will use his Fellowship to develop a new molecular engineering approaches for fingerprinting steroids at the point of need.
The project will ultimately deliver a practical prototype of a fast, inexpensive method of steroid profiling suitable for use by medics, researchers, patients and environmental scientists.
Humans, animals, plants and fungi all produce hundreds of different small molecules based on a core chemical framework, known as steroids. Steroids are crucial for cellular structure, signalling, digestive health and reproduction, and synthetic steroids are used extensively as drugs. Changes in steroid balance often indicate disease or drug use/abuse, and overexposure can damage ecosystems.
Steroid profiling enables disease diagnosis and environmental monitoring, but current methods are costly, labour-intensive, and unsuitable for point-of-need use. Dr Peveler’s Fellowship will develop new sensors for profiling steroids using innovative luminescence spectroscopy, focusing initially on steroid fingerprints for liver disease diagnosis.
More broadly, the technology could help spot the early warning signs of gastric cancers, cardiac disease, and metabolic disorders. The technology will also be applied to wastewater treatment to help prevent environmental damage from medications, as part of a One Health approach. Ultimately, the project could lead to low-cost tools for remote personalised healthcare and environmental monitoring.
Dr Peveler said: “I'm delighted that this fellowship will allow me to expand my work in this way and create real impact. The Future Leaders Fellowship is a career-defining opportunity for me and my team to expand our molecular engineering toolbox and work towards making steroid profiling a routine clinical measurement. This could enable future 'precision medicine' approaches, especially in liver disease – a huge and growing concern in the UK right now. I hope that with my partners we can deliver potent, inexpensive and point-of-need tools to enable better health outcomes for people and the environment, and I’d like to thank my colleagues across the University and externally who have made this success possible”
Dr Michael Howcroft, who is based in the Place and Built Environment subject group in the Division of Urban Studies and Social Policy, will use the fellowship funding to support his project – Civic Imaginary Partnerships: Cultures of participation and local decision making.
Working with a range of creative artists, local and national policymakers and community organisations, this project will develop long-term ethnographic understandings of how different communities collectively reimagine and reinvent their places. It will advocate for the concept and method of the civic imaginary as a broker between local authorities and communities and provide policy makers with new models to understand local needs.
Dr Howcroft said: “I’m over the moon to have this opportunity. Community-based research often must rely on short-term funding to get by, so I feel incredibly lucky to have this level of support. It will sustain the partnerships over a long period of time and enable us to develop ambitious local projects. I’m doing it with amazing colleagues here in University of Glasgow Urban Studies and I'd like to thank everyone who has made the project possible.”
UKRI Chief Executive Professor Dame Ottoline Leyser said: “UKRI’s Future Leaders Fellowships provide researchers and innovators with long-term support and training to develop ambitious, transformative ideas.
“The programme supports the research and innovation leaders of the future to transcend disciplinary and sector boundaries, bridging the gap between academia and business.
“The fellows announced today demonstrate how these awards continue to drive excellence, and to shorten the distance from discovery to prosperity and public good.”
First published: 18 July 2024