BTS/BALR/BLF Early Career Investigator Awards 2019

After showcasing their work in front of an eminent judging panel earlier this afternoon, the winners of the BTS/BALR/BLF (British Thoracic Society, British Association for Lung Research, British Lung Foundation) Early Career Investigator Awards have now been announced as:

BTS Award

The winner of the BTS award is Dr Peter Bailey of the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research, for his presentation: Identification of ROLIP as a mitochondrial regulator of metabolism and the hypoxia responsive pathway.

Dr Bailey said of his work:

“This work was undertaken as part of my Wellcome-funded PhD at the University of Cambridge. Working in the laboratory of Dr James Nathan, I undertook a forward genetic screen for metabolic regulators of the hypoxia response in human cell lines, which identified a previously unknown mitochondrial protein.

“During my PhD, and in collaboration with other groups in Cambridge and internationally, I characterised this protein, purifying it and examining the phenotype of its knockout or inhibition in cultured cells, finding that it is involved in a ubiquitous but poorly-understood metabolic regulatory pathway.

“As well as identifying a potentially useful drug target to modulate the hypoxia response and cell metabolism, the project involved learning a wide variety of techniques in genetics, cell biology and biochemistry which I hope to apply to a career as a clinician scientist following my interests in dysregulated hypoxia signalling in COPD and chronic ventilatory disease.”

Congratulations also to the highly commended Miss Eleanor Axson of the National Heart and Lung Institute at Imperial College London, for her presentation by the title: Effect of incident heart failure on short- and long-term mortality of COPD patients.

About her work, she commented:

“My abstract was undertaken as part of my PhD project: Heart failure as a risk factor for acute exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (AECOPD). The first aim of this project is to understand the scale of heart failure comorbidity in the COPD population of the UK.

“The results of these analyses suggest that HF remains under-recognised and under-treated in the COPD population, leading to poor survival. These analyses have laid the groundwork for my subsequent PhD aims, namely to investigate how heart failure comorbidity affects incidence and severity of AECOPD.”

BALR Award

The winner of the BALR award is Ms Patricia Ogger, of the National Heart and Lung Institute at Imperial College London, for her presentation titled: Itaconate drives the resolution of pulmonary fibrosis.

Ms Ogger, speaking about her work, said:

“This project forms a major part of my PhD research at the National Heart and Lung Institute. I designed this study together with my supervisors Dr Adam Byrne, Prof Clare Lloyd and Prof Toby Maher and carried out the majority of work.

As this project forms the core of my PhD work, it has been very valuable to learn new techniques and to set up the bleomycin mouse model and Seahorse live cell metabolic analysis in our lab. It has been a good learning progress since starting this project almost three years ago. It has now been submitted to Cell Metabolism as my first first-author paper I am looking forward to seeing it published.

“Going forward this project has deepened my interest in metabolism of immune cells and metabolites in immunology so I shall be looking to find a Postdoc position in this field after I finish my PhD next year.”

Congratulations also to Dr Simon Finch of the University of Dundee, who was highly commended for his presentation: Pregnancy Zone Protein is released into neutrophil extracellular traps in severe bronchiectasis.

Speaking of his work, Dr Finch said:

“This is a major component of my PhD project which involved a translational study into the role of pregnancy zone protein in patients with bronchiectasis. My PhD was conducted at the University of Dundee and has been supervised by Professor James Chalmers and Dr. Amelia Shoemark.

“This project has allowed me to develop skills in laboratory techniques, data analysis and translational research alongside an appreciation of the importance of registry data and clinical research in bronchiectasis. I hope to continue to be involved in bronchiectasis clinical research in my future career and this fellowship has given me exposure to the wide spectrum of research opportunities.”

BLF Award

The winner of the BLF award is Dr Richard Allen of the Department of Health Sciences at the University of Leicester, for his presentation: Meta-analysis of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis genome-wide analyses identifies three novel genetic signals associated with disease susceptibility.

Dr Allen said of his work:

“There have been three previous idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) genome-wide association studies (GWAS) in European populations. The aim of this study was to combine all previous GWAS, to identify novel genetic variants associated with IPF risk. Novel variants identified in this genome-wide meta-analysis were then tested in two independent replication studies.

“By doing this project I have been able to learn a range of new skills, including genotype calling, colocalisation analyses and enrichment analyses and I have learnt more about the biology of genetic regulatory regions.

“This project has also given me the chance to lead an analysis in a multi-national collaboration, which has helped improve my organisation and communication skills, on top of offering me the chance to collaborate and learn from leading experts in the field of IPF genetic research.”

Congratulations also to Miss Beth Mansfield of the School of Biosciences at Cardiff University, who was highly commended for her presentation: Calcium-sensing receptor antagonists (calcilytics) as a novel therapeutic for Alarmin-driven inflammatory lung disease.

Speaking of her work Miss Mansfield said:

“I performed the in vitro work using urban particulate matter, a major component of air pollution, to investigate the role of the calcium-sensing receptor (CaSR) in inflammatory lung disease.

“The work I carried out with my colleagues demonstrates, for the first time, how UPM affects cellular functions, and a link between environmental cues and immune response. The often-polluted external world could interact with the human airway via the CaSR thereby driving to the development or exacerbations of asthma and other inflammatory lung diseases.

“This work has helped shape my area of research interest highlighting the importance of connecting molecular processes to external stimuli. It has also ingrained the value of pursuing research which has scientific and clinical impact.”

More on the ECI Awards

These prestigious prizes are highly competitive and are awarded to the very best basic, translational or clinical research performed in the UK respiratory community by early career investigators. The prizes are awarded based on the quality and content of the research performed, the quality of the abstract submitted and in short-listed candidates, the quality of the oral presentation given at the Early Career Investigators Symposium at the BTS Winter Meeting.

Clinicians, Scientists and Professionals allied to Medicine are eligible to submit their work for consideration. The BTS/BALR/BLF awards are not open to medical students, who are invited to compete in the Best Medical Student Award.