Successes by our early-career researchers

Nov 2017: Huge congratulations to four of our early-career researchers, Michael Stringer, Sarah Lemprière, Mark Rodrigues and Gashirai Mbizvo, who have all won awards in recent weeks.

Michael Stringer

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Michael Stringer

Awarded Postdoctoral and Early Career Researcher Exchange (PECRE) funds from SINAPSE, the Scottish Imaging Network

Michael is a Research Fellow in Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Image Analysis in the small vessel disease (SVD) group led by Professor Joanna Wardlaw. His current research interests focus on using advanced MRI techniques to explore small vessel disease, including cerebrovascular reactivity, BBB permeability and magnetic resonance spectroscopy.

SINAPSE is a consortium of six Scottish universities that aims to promote research, knowledge exchange and education in medical imaging. Their PECRE scheme provides research and development opportunities for postdoctoral/early career researchers. During his PECRE exchange Michael will visit three groups involved with the Leducq Transatlantic Network: the Zilkha Neurogenetic Institute of the University of Southern California (Prof Berislav Zlokovic), Yale University (Prof Helene Benveniste) and Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre (Prof Sandra Black).

The visits will provide opportunities to learn about advanced scanning and analysis techniques as well as assisting with harmonisation for on-going work. A central aim will be to consider ways of improving the translatability and relevance of findings from rodent models to humans and vice versa.

Related links

SINAPSE PECRE scheme

Leducq Foundation Transatlantic Network of Excellence: Perivascular Spaces in Small Vessel Disease

Brain vascular disease research in the Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences

Edinburgh Imaging

Sarah Lemprière

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Sarah Lempriere

Winner of Nature 'Better Science through Better Data' writing competition

Sarah  is a PhD student in Professor Seth Grant's lab. Sarah's article, which has been published on the Naturejobs blog,  was about the huge amounts of scientific data now being generated. It argues that making it all available and open will help science. There were five winners from all over the world who, as their prize, attended the #scidata17 conference in London last month to hear from speakers involved in all kinds of different aspects of open research, from code-sharing platforms to an entirely open research institute.

Related links

Mark Rodrigues

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Mark Rodrigues

Awarded the Scottish Radiological Society Anne Hollman Medal

Mark is a radiology registrar with an interest in neuroradiology and molecular imaging. He is doing a Wellcome Trust-funded PhD in CCBS through the University of Edinburgh ECAT programme - assessing structural and molecular imaging biomarkers of cerebral small vessel diseases in patients with spontaneous intracerebral haemorrhage. Essentially, he is interested in how we can use imaging features to help diagnose and prognose patients with intracerebral haemorrhage. 

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The Scottish Radiological Society Anne Hollman medal

The Anne Hollman medal is awarded annually by the Scottish Radiological Society for the best oral research or audit presentation by a radiology trainee. Mark's presentation was about how we can use routine imaging along with genetics to help diagnose the underl

ying cause of intracerebral haemorrhage.

Related links

Scottish Radiological Society Anne Hollman medal

Research to Understand Stroke due to Haemorrhage (RUSH) in the Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences

Edinburgh Clinical Academic Track programme

Gashirai Mbizvo

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Gashirai Mbizvo with his certificate from SANS

Awarded Best Overall Presentation Prize at the Scottish Association of Neurological Sciences (SANS) Annual Meeting

Gashirai Mbizvo is a Clinical Research Fellow with an interest in neurology, who is working in Richard Chin’s lab at the CCBS Muir Maxwell Epilepsy Centre.

SANS is an umbrella organisation to support neurology-related clinicians in Scotland and includes membership from neurologists, neurosurgeons, neuropathologists and clinical neurophysiologists. To win this award, Gashirai presented his research project, The Scottish Epilepsy Deaths Study (SEDS), in open competition against 17 other neurology research projects that were presented at the meeting. SEDS is a national cohort and case-control study linking various administrative healthcare datasets in Scotland in order to identify rate, causes, and risk factors for epilepsy-related mortality.

Related links

Scottish Association of Neurological Sciences

Muir Maxwell Epilepsy Centre

Neurodevelopmental conditions research in the Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences