22 July 2024
Dr George Goodwin and Dr Miha Modic awarded King's Prize Fellowships
Two School of Neuroscience researchers have successfully obtained King's Prize Fellowships
Dr George Goodwin from Wolfson Sensory, Pain and Regeneration Centre and Dr Miha Modic from UK Dementia Research Institute at King's and Basic and Clinical Neuroscience have received the King's Prize Fellowships.
The fellowships are awarded to outstanding postdoctoral scientists in biomedical or health research to support their transition to independent researchers. The award enables recipients to establish their research programmes in King's and to compete for intermediate-level postdoctoral fellowships.
Dr George Goodwin is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Wolfson SPaRC.
As part of his King's Prize Fellowship, Dr Goodwin aims to determine whether silent nociceptors play a critical role in generating arthritis pain. To achieve this, he will utilise his newly developed CHRNA3-CRE-ERT2 'silent nociceptor' mouse line, along with in vivo imaging, chemogenetic, and behavioural techniques in relevant models of arthritis.
This fellowship gives him the time and resources to generate the crucial pilot data he needs to obtain a further 5-year fellowship from Versus Arthritis or UKRI. He thanks his supervisor and current mentor, Dr Franziska Denk, and his late mentor, Professor Steve McMahon, for their support.
The second King's Prize Fellowship was awarded to Dr Miha Modic, Sir Henry Wellcome Senior Fellow at King's College London.
During his King's Prize Fellowship, Dr Modic will work closely with King's researchers Dr Flora Lee, Dr Laura Andreae and Prof Eugene Makeyev to decipher how the essential dementia transcript MAPT is regulated in cellular homeostasis. More importantly, they wish to understand how errors in the assembly of its regulatory proteins may lead to tauopathies and subsequent neurodegeneration.
This fellowship enables Dr Modic to prepare for a bigger grant application such as the Wellcome Trust Career Development Award. He expresses gratitude towards his supervisor Professor Jernej Ule (UK DRI at King's) and his mentor and collaborator Professor Derk ten Berge (Erasmus University).
King's Prize Fellowships support outstanding post-doctoral researchers in health-related areas to transition to independent academic careers. The fellowships are co-funded by a generous endowment from The Anthony and Elizabeth Mellows Charitable Settlement (established in memory of Professor Anthony Mellows, former head of King’s Law department), a university-level award from the Wellcome Trust, and a grant from King’s.