Huge congratulations to Donia Arafa who was awarded CDBS best PhD theses 2023/2024. The prize was presented at the R Jean Banister Prize Lecture + Mary Pickford Lecture afternoon event held at the Wellcome Auditorium, QMRI on Thursday 21st November. The Alison Douglas Best PhD Thesis Prize The annual Alison Douglas PhD Dissertation prize was established in 2015 in memory of our colleague Professor Alison Douglas. Professor Alison Douglas was a passionate and supportive mentor to numerous postgraduate students. Well done to Donia Arafa whose thesis 'Investigating mechanisms of demyelination' won this year's award. What Donia has achieved through her PhD is truly outstanding. She has generated a body of work, presented in her masterfully crafted thesis. Donia’s findings, in my very clearly biased opinion, will, I suspect, represent a landmark discovery in the field.In addition to the enormous contribution that Donia has made through her experimental work, she has been an exemplary and inspiring member of our team and wider community. Prof Dave Lyons Supervisor This year's Mary Pickford Lecture was delivered by Prof Laura Bennet, University of Auckland ‘Hidden clocks: The importance of understanding time for diagnosis and treatment of fetal and neonatal brain injury’The Physiological Society’s R Jean Banister Prize Lecture by Dr Andrew Lin, University of Sheffield 'Sparse coding for odour-specific memories through homeostatic plasticity'The afternoon also included talks from early career researchers:Dr Danai Katsanevaki (Centre for Discovery Brain Sciences): 'Sensory disruptions in SYNGAP1-related intellectual disability’Dr Robert Little (Centre for Cardiovascular Science): 'Kidney clocks and blood pressure physiology’Dr Kadi Vaher (Centre for Reproductive Health): 'Bacteria and the Brain: the gut microbiome’s role in preterm infant neurodevelopment’ This article was published on 2024-11-26
