BTS/BALR/BLF Early Career Investigator Awards 2021

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 Ms Iona Cuthbertson of the University of Cambridge, with her work: “Therapeutically targeting PTBP1/PKM2-driven glycolysis in endothelial cells: A novel approach to treat Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension” within Professor Nicholas Morrell's research group.

Asked about her prize winning research, she commented: “PAH is a rare, life-limiting disease with no cure, and is characterised by remodelling of peripheral pulmonary arteries, eventually leading to heart failure. Pulmonary artery endothelial cell dysfunction is one of the initial causes, comprising increased cell proliferation and abnormal apoptosis.

"The aim of my research is to improve our understanding of endothelial cell metabolic dysfunction in Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension (PAH) and identify novel metabolically targeted treatment strategies.

"I undertook this research as part of my PhD project at the University of Cambridge, under the supervision of Dr Paola Caruso and Professor Nicholas Morrell.

"For the first time, I have shown that a lowly toxic antitumorigenic compound manipulates PTBP1 and PKM2 expression in ECs and suppresses aberrant glycolysis, proliferation, and susceptibility to apoptosis. Ultimately, my work will improve our understanding of the molecular mechanisms orchestrating endothelial cell dysfunction in PAH and may lead to the development of novel therapeutic strategies that target metabolic function in PAH.”

Our congratulations to the highly commended candidate Dr Chris Orton of the of Royal Brompton Hospital and Imperial College London, for the presentation: “Respiratory Particle and Droplet Emission During Speech and Exercise”.

When asked to comment about his research work, he said: “My work was part of the DCMS and EPSRC funded PERFORM-1 and 2 collaborations, which aimed at characterising aerosol and droplet release during breathing, speaking, singing, the playing of musical instruments, speech and language therapy, and exercise.

"Aerosol release during exercise is intensity-dependent and particle size-distributions are similar to breathing and different to speaking, which releases larger particles generated by phonation and oral articulation.

"These findings greatly enhance our understanding of particle generation during exercise, informing mitigation strategies for airborne pathogens including SARS-CoV-2.

"Further findings on adult exercise, children speaking and singing are under peer review, and we are focusing on the analysis of the instrumentalist, adult singer and, speech and language therapy cohorts.”

BLF Award

The winner of the BLF award is Dr Michaela Reichmann of the University of Southampton, for her work: “Integrated transcriptomic analysis of human tuberculosis granulomas and a biomimetic model identifies sphingosine kinase 1 as a potential therapeutic target”

We asked Dr Reichmann about her research, she said: “This work is the major output of my recent PhD investigating the immunopathology of tuberculosis and sarcoidosis at the University of Southampton's Faculty of Medicine, where I performed all the experiments, sequenced clinical samples, and undertook bioinformatic analysis, under the supervision of Professor Paul Elkington, Dr Marta Polak and Dr Liku Tezera.

"This is the first transcriptomic analysis of untreated tuberculosis lymph node samples and provides valuable insight into disease mechanisms driving the pathology we see in patients.

"The integration of unbiased analysis of clinical samples with a biomimetic model has established a translational pipeline to identify new therapeutic approaches.

"I identified the enzyme Sphingosine kinase 1 as a promising new therapeutic target in tuberculosis, which could compliment current antibiotic therapy and shorten treatment duration.

"The next step for me will be to develop a multiomic approach during my clinical lectureship, particularly spatial transcriptomics, to further our understanding of these granulomatous conditions and translate to finding new host therapeutic targets and improve patient prognosis.”

Congratulations also to Mr Luke Kraven of the University of Leicester, who was highly commended for the work he undertook during an industrial placement at GlaxoSmithKline as part of his MRC-funded iCASE PhD, entitled:" Understanding the genetic basis of disease endotypes in Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF)", under the supervision of Prof Louise Wain, Prof Gisli Jenkins, Dr Astrid Yeo and Adam Taylor.

When asked about his work, Luke said: “The main objective of my study was to improve our understanding of the pathogenesis of IPF by using gene expression data to identify clinically distinct groups of IPF patients that could represent distinct disease endotypes. By utilising a new method of data co-normalisation we were able to combine multiple publicly available datasets and perform one of the largest gene expression studies in IPF to date.

“By clustering the gene expression data, we found that there were at least two clinically distinct subgroups of IPF patients, thereby supporting the hypothesis that the disease consists of multiple endotypes. These findings provide some valuable insight into the clinical heterogeneity in IPF and could pave the way for a biomarker-driven personalised medicine approach.”

BALR Award

The winner of the BALR award is Dr Kaylee Worlock of University College London, who received her prize for her presentation “Local and systemic responses to SARS-CoV-2 infection in children and adults”.

On her work, she commented: “I am honoured to have the chance to present my work at the BTS Winter Meeting. I was intrigued to find out why children are protected from severe COVID-19 and together with my supervisor Dr Marko Nikolić from UCL Respiratory in collaboration with Dr Kerstin Meyer from the Wellcome Sanger Institute, I have set up the study to address this question through multi-omic single cell analysis of matched nasal, tracheal, bronchial and blood samples.

“We provide one of the largest multi-omic paediatric COVID-19 single cell datasets to date, enabling us to identify multiple age-specific immune responses to SARS-CoV-2 and describe several novel mechanisms behind why children find themselves more protected from severe COVID-19 than adults.

“This work offers key clues into the disease pathology and insights for guiding future therapeutics and represents a major part of my MRC-UCL/Birkbeck-funded PhD at UCL Respiratory and as part of a wonderful, inter-disciplinary collaboration, with many people involved helping make this research possible.”

Reflecting on what the future holds for her work, she added:
“For the remaining part of my PhD I aim to delve into some of these mechanisms further, studying them longitudinally as part of the Human COVID-19 Challenge study.”

Congratulations also to Dr Julie Worrell, of the Institute of Infection, Immunity, and Inflammation at the University of Glasgow on being highly commended.

Her presentation was “Reinfection with influenza A virus leads to rapid changes in immunomodulatory molecules and inflammatory subtypes of lung fibroblasts and epithelial cells”

Asked to comment on her research, she said: “My work interrogates the functions and interactions of stromal and immune cell populations, in vivo following influenza virus infection.

“While the immediate responses of fibroblasts and epithelial cells to respiratory virus infection have been well characterized, few studies have investigated the longer term consequences of infection. These revealed that following influenza virus infection, lung fibroblasts and epithelial cells display long-term changes that could enhance the cells’ abilities to communicate with immune cells, particularly T cells.

“Understanding the long-term consequences for the virally infected lung may have implications for, or provide insight into, the management of ‘emerging respiratory viruses’ such as COVID-19.”

“I have now obtained independent seed funding to pursue this avenue of investigation, and it has led to a new collaboration with researchers at Imperial College London.”

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.