Travel grants for young scientists
The SWCF provides financial support for young scientists wishing to attend scientific conferences in research areas which were of particular interest to Simon Wolff. It is essential for scientists to meet and exchange ideas with fellow workers from around the world, but it is often very difficult, especially for younger scientists, to obtain funding to make these trips possible. Feedback from initial recipients of these awards stresses how valuable attendance at these conferences has been to the scientists concerned.
The SWCF has awarded a Travel Grant to Dr. Hermione Price, a Clinical Research Fellow researching diabetes at the University of Oxford, to enable her to attend the American Diabetes Association's 67th Scientific Sessions in San Francisco in June 2008. Such conferences are of great importance to young scientists.
Read Dr. Hermione Price's report»
The SWCF awarded a Travel Grant to Sarah Clark, a final year PhD student at Queen's University Belfast working on potential antiviral agents, to enable her to attend the 1st European Chemistry Congress in Budapest, Hungary in August 2006.
The SWCF awarded a Travel Grant to Dr Stuart Plant, Lipid and Diabetes Research Group, Christchurch Hospital, New Zealand for attendance at the 5th Congress of Asian Pacific Society of Atherosclerosis and Vascular Diseases, Jeju Island, South Korea. He has sent us an entertaining and illuminating account of his trip, including (lay) descriptions of his research, which focuses on the mechanism by which adiponectin, a hormone released by the body's fatty tissue, is able to protect the cardiovascular system from becoming diseased.
Nair Sreejayan works at the University of Munich, Germany, on Cholesterol Gallstone Disease. He showed for the first time that free radicals play a role in the development of gallstones and speculated that antioxidant drugs may be useful in treating this condition. He was selected to present his findings at the American Gastroenterological Association conference in New Orleans, USA, in the summer of 1998 and the SWCF donated £300 towards the cost of his attendance.
Oliver de Peyer, was a postgraduate student at Reading University working on cataract formation – one of the major causes of blindness throughout the world. He was interested in a particular protein component of the lens called MIP26, which seems to be very sensitive to damage caused by certain sugars. Simon Wolff was a pioneer of the view that high sugar levels in patients with diabetes and in older people is damaging to the lens, as well as otherparts of the body, because of the particular chemical reactions which take place between sugars and proteins. Oliver, who also received £300 from the SWCF, attended the International Symposium of Eye Research in Paris in the summer of 1998, where the links between high sugar levels in the blood and cataract formation was discussed.
Mahadev Rao, a scientist working at Kasturba Medical College, Manipal, India, was able to attend the 4th European Congress of Pharmaceutical Sciences in Milan, Italy, 1999 with a £300 bursary from SWCF. Dr Rao presented a paper on his work concerning the potential use of antioxidants to help protect cancer patients from kidney damage which is sometimes caused by anticancer drug therapies.
an Mudway is a scientist at St. Thomas's Hospital, London, working on the interaction of vehicular derived pollutants with the lung respiratory tract. Dr. Mudway used his £300 bursary from SWCF to attend the European Respiratory Society meeting in Geneva, Switzerland in 1999, where he presented his work on the potential protective effects of antioxidants against pollutant derived lung injury. The trustees felt that Dr Mudway's work brought together Simon Wolff's two main scientific interests, car pollution and oxidative damage, in a particularly novel and interesting way.
Applications for grants should be submitted to awards@simonwolff.org.uk at least three months before you intend to travel.