European funding success

Babraham is delighted to welcome two new Marie Skłodowksa-Curie Fellows. Dr Irene Hernando-Herraez and Dr Antonio Galvao have recently been awarded these prestigious Fellowships from the European Union’s Research and Innovation Programme, Horizon 2020. Working in Prof. Wolf Reik’s lab, Irene plans to identify the role of epigenetic marks in cell fate decisions during development. Irene said “Wolf’s lab is at the cutting edge of single cell technology and the experience I will obtain through this fellowship will allow me to build on my current expertise which will open up new career possibilities”. Joining Dr. Gavin Kelsey’s lab, Antonio aims to identify epigenetic changes in early embryo development in response to maternal obesity and to understand whether these changes determine the predisposition of offspring to obesity and type 2 diabetes. “This fellowship will bring together my expertise in reproductive medicine with that of the Babraham lab’s state-of-the-art facilities for epigenetic analysis” said Antonio.
 
Irene and Antonio will join the family of Marie (Skłodowska) Curie Fellows at Babraham, with Dr Melanie Eckersley-Maslin mid-way through her fellowship in Prof Wolf Reik’s lab and Dr Jo Durgan having just completed her fellowship in Dr Oliver Florey’s lab. Jo’s work has led to the discovery that mitosis can drive cancer cell cannibalism, providing important new insight into the century old observation that tumour cells are prone to consuming each other.
 
Jo commented that “The Marie Curie Fellowship provided me with a unique opportunity to transition home to the UK after several years spent training in New York, and to develop my research on breast cancer. The fellowship had an enormous impact on my career and my life, as the EU provided the flexibility I needed to balance my research with raising two young children. I’m so grateful to have been given this support and I hope that others will be able to benefit similarly in the future”. The Institute continues to welcome European Fellowship applications. This year’s deadline for applications is 14 September 2017 – contact Cheryl Smythe for more information. 
 
Prof. Michael Wakelam said “Congratulations to Irene and Antonio! It’s an outstanding achievement to be awarded such a prestigious fellowship from the Horizon 2020 programme. The Babraham Institute and UK science benefit enormously from international researchers and from the array of funding schemes available from Europe and we hope that this will long continue”.