Cancer Research UK has awarded two researchers from the University of Edinburgh prestigious fellowships as part of a series of grants given to new investigators who are set to become the eminent cancer scientists of the future.
Dr Julie Welburn and Dr Simon Wilkinson will each receive a six-year Career Development Fellowship award of around £1,100,000.
The charity has awarded £12 million to 10 exceptional researchers from across the country to develop their careers and to aid exciting discoveries that will help more people beat cancer than ever before.
Career Development Fellowships support promising junior researchers who have developed an impressive research career to run their own research group for the first time.
Dr Welburn will use the fellowship to study how the genetic material in our cells is correctly transferred as the cells divide, which will give clues as to how this process goes wrong in some cancers.
Dr Welburn said: “I am honoured to receive such as prestigious award. I am grateful that Cancer Research UK is supporting me in this critical stage of my scientific career.”
Dr Wilkinson will use the fellowship to look at how a cell’s own machinery is used to promote tumour growth and survival in lung cancer, which will provide new targets for drugs that stop or prevent cancer development.
Dr Wilkinson said: “This fellowship will allow me to answer important questions about the defects in cell signalling that drive lung cancer and to explore potential therapeutic exploitation of these abnormalities.”
Professor Margaret Frame is chair of the panel of world-renowned cancer experts that helped to select these scientists and science director at the Edinburgh Cancer Research UK Centre. She said: “It was highly competitive and we ended up with an excellent set of individuals. Now Cancer Research UK will nurture their talent and their passion for cancer research.
“I am always amazed by the breadth of wonderful new innovation and ideas that I see at these interviews. The funding from Cancer Research UK will give these ten scientists the time and resources to take on challenging problems in cancer. It will be exciting to see what comes out of these projects over the next few years. I look forward to watching them develop their own independent careers and join the next generation of cancer research leaders in the UK and internationally.”
Cancer survival rates have doubled since the 1970s and Cancer Research UK’s work has been at the heart of that progress.
Cancer Research UK spends around £33 million each year in Scotland, including funding research at the Edinburgh Cancer Research UK Centre on developing new ways to treat, diagnose and prevent bowel, breast and ovarian cancers.
