GW4-CAT Fellow Secures Zuckerberg funding for rare syndrome research network
Congratulations to Dr Jack Underwood, GW4-CAT Fellow and Cardiff University working with the Timothy Syndrome Alliance (TSA) who have secured $800,000 from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative to support research networks into Timothy Syndrome and CACNA1C-related disorders.
Timothy Syndrome is a rare genetic condition that is characterised by heart defects, webbing of fingers and toes, epilepsy, developmental delay and autism spectrum disorders. The condition affects fewer than 200 people worldwide.
‘This funding demonstrates how vital this work is. Whilst patients with Timothy Syndrome and CACNA1C-related disorders represent a small population globally, by increasing our understanding of rare diseases, like this one, we can make a genuine impact on patients and their families.’ Dr Jack Underwood
GW4-CAT Cohort II Member Chantelle Wiseman reflects on her time as a PhD Fellow.
Chantelle started her PhD in the second cohort of fellows in February 2019 and completed her PhD earlier this year, graduating in June 2024. Chantelle was offered two Clinical Lecturer positions at Bristol and Birmingham and accepted the offer at Birmingham. Here are Chantelle’s words of reflection, and thanks, for being part of the Programme:
“I just want to thank you both so much for all your support over the last few years. I felt so privileged to get onto the GW4-CAT programme and although doing the PhD was not easy at times, it has been a brilliant challenge and now it is finished I feel a huge sense of accomplishment. You both have been really supportive and helpful over this period, from helping to chase senior people up to giving advice on honorary contracts and contacts at the different universities in the GW4-CAT. I found the cohort days really useful as well, as the pleasures and challenges of a clinical academic trainee are quite niche and cannot be fully understood by either other clinicians or other academics, but going to the cohort day gave a good chance to discuss these with peers who understand well. The PhD has covered such a significant portion of my life- a house move to Bristol and then to the West Midlands, my wedding, the birth of my daughter and of course covid-19. I am definitely feeling sad not to stay at University of Bristol and Severn, but geographically my life has moved to the West Midlands and it makes sense to take this opportunity to move my career up here too”.
It has been a privilege to know you over the years Chantelle and we wish you all the very best in your future clinical academic career as a future leader in academic psychiatry.
Welcome to 2024 and a Happy New Year
How quickly the time goes and I can’t believe that we are currently recruiting for our 4th cohort of GW4 clinical academic PhD Fellows for our Wellcome funded PhD Programme for Health Professionals.
At the end of 2023 the Programme Directors and myself attended a meeting at Wellcome HQ to learn about the progress of these PhD programmes for health professionals and to voice our challenges and successes with the funders. Our Programme were invited to present our successes with our cohort building and training events and are grateful to our fellows who provided the quotes of how important these days are, for many reasons:
An example from one of our Fellows in the final year of PhD:
| “I have always really enjoyed the cohort days. I find them a fantastic opportunity to network with peers in different specialities, particularly to discuss general PhD progress, novel opportunities and the challenges that others have encountered. It’s also great from a practical point of view to know how others have managed budgets, courses, conferences, research politics and balancing work with having new babies and young children (which seems a rather common theme in our cohorts!). The content of the days is also extremely helpful to cover those areas of our learning and development that are often hard to access, like resilience, social media, and research commercialisation and impact etc. and it’s always lovely to see you and Tracey too, as you have been a constant support. It was great to meet colleagues from other centres, all of whom run their programmes in their own unique way, and to hear from the funders. It was a great day of learning and sharing.“ |
Prestigious Awards for our Wellcome GW4-CAT Fellows
Most of our Fellows funded by our first Wellcome GW4-CAT Programme grant have now successfully completed their PhD and are moving into their post-doctoral careers, whilst balancing the completion of their clinical training. We had 3 recent noticeable successes in receipt of prestigious awards:
Claire Salter
Winner of the Dian Donnai Prize for the best spoken presentation by an ECR at the 19th Manchester Dysmorphology Conference with her presentation.
Congratulations to Claire who is in the final year of her PhD, based at University of Exeter.
Gus Hamilton
Gus gave the British Infection Associations Barnett Christie Lecture in November. This is their annual lecture and is given to the trainee with best infection research that year. Gus also won the Royal College of Pathology Gold Medal for best trainee research in the Royal College of Pathology.
In addition, he managed to secure 1.8 million from the NIHR HTA to run a randomised trial of steroids for cellulitis (co-lead with Edd Carlton).
Congratulations to Gus on these fantastic achievements. A very fitting end to your 3-year PhD at the University of Bristol, having submitted his thesis in September and passed his Viva in December 2023.
Nick Thomas
Many congratulations to Nick on winning the South-West 2024 Turner-Warwick lecturer scheme. This was open to all clinical lecturers in the region so it is a great achievement.
Nick will deliver his lecture entitled: Pre-symptomatic type 1 diabetes case detection: using genetics to find the needle in the haystack at the Royal College of Physicians Update in Medicine series on 6th March 2024 in Exeter.
Congratulations to Professor Sir John Iredale
We were delighted to read about our Programme Director receiving a Knighthood in the King’s New Year Honours list and very proud of Sir John on this achievement given for his dedication and service to medical research and to his years of support for the next generation of clinical academics and young scientists.
Sir John modelled the GW4-CAT PhD Programmes on the success of E-CAT in Edinburgh and WCAT in Wales and we have strived to deliver the very best programme with his experience and guidance. Professors Richard Coward and Kathryn Peall will now take the joint Directorship of the PhD Programme for Health Professionals, whilst John remains the Director of the original GW4-CAT PhD Programme.
Here are additional links to the news items recently reported:
December: King’s New Year Honours | News and features | University of Bristol
Former UKRI leaders recognised in New Year Honours – UKRI
Finally…
Good luck to all applicants who will be applying for a 2025 PhD start and then applying this time next year for a 2026 PhD start. We are very keen to support all applicants, regardless of clinical background, so do always contact us if you are unsure. We are planning a few events for later in the year that may be of interest to those who perhaps aren’t traditionally thinking about a PhD, but have a research background and a strong interest in taking this further! We will be making plans and advertising these later in the year.
In the meantime, keep on keeping on and very best wishes for 2024.
Dr Jayne Bailey, Programme Manager