We are delighted to announce the awards that have been funded under the 2020 and 2022 rounds of our Multiple PhD studentship scheme. The scheme offers institutions the opportunity to co-fund, with the Trust, cohorts of PhD studentships focussed on one or more of our priority themes as set out in our strategic framework:
- Improving our understanding of the underlying mechanisms of ageing and age-related disease;
- Targeting the social determinants of healthy life expectancy;
- Improving the quality of life for older people, in particular;
- in developing and delivering suitable living environments;
- addressing issues of age-related vision, hearing and oral health;
- Preventing, delaying or reducing future health and social care requirements, in particular, improving the ability to maintain functional independence for older adults.
One of the key principles of this scheme is that institutions demonstrate a strategic commitment to ageing-related research, and it has been very encouraging to see this in both rounds of the scheme.
The deadline for the pilot scheme was in early 2020, with applications reviewed by the Trust’s staff, and decisions ratified by the Research Grants Committee later that year. 24 applications were received, and 4 awards made totalling £723,000 of funding from the Trust (equating to a success rate of 17%). Together with the institutional co-funding, this is supporting 19 students to pursue their PhDs in ageing-related fields.
Following a staggered start to these PhDs due to the pandemic, a second round of the scheme took place in 2021/22 following a similar assessment process. This time, 30 applications were received with 7 awards being made (equating to a success rate of 23%). 29 PhD studentships are being supported with £1,373,957 funding from the Trust and additional support from institutions.
Please expand the list of awards below to read more information about the centres and studentships that were funded:
2020 Awards:
Award amount: £200,000
Students and Project titles:
- Kieran Bowden – Using inhibitors of the ErbB family of tyrosine kinases to treat chronic inflammatory diseases of the ageing population
- Anne Cathrine Hyde – Investigation of ageing associated inflammation and genomic instability in human and modelling in zebrafish
- Olivia Turner – Evaluation of the relationship between senescence, frailty and deprivation; a biomarker study
- Joshua Kimble – Impaired immune function in ageing and frailty linked to dysregulated FAM26F induction
- Isaac Hance – The Socio-Biological Gradient of Healthy Ageing in the Aftermath of Covid-19
- Josephine Cadman – The role of adrenomedullin and its receptors in age-related organ dysfunction
- Ziqian Sun – Improving cost-effectiveness of clinical trials in frailty with in silico predictions
Award amount: £123,000
Students and Project titles:
- Barbara Balocating Dunn – Developing UK Inclusive Design Standards for mainstream housing to enable future home adaptations to support People with Dementia
- Manisha Jain – Investigation of Exercise and Technology for Memory Improvement in Dementia
- Ahmad Aladawi – Indoor Environmental Design for A Dementia-Friendly Home using Smart IoT Technologies
Award amount: £200,000
Students and Project titles:
- Nathalie Ringström – Development of an in vitro model of the aged cardiac extracellular matrix
- Saima (Mia) Mohammed – Generation of a novel in vitro system to investigate the effect of ageing on the articular cartilage
Award amount: £200,000
Students and Project titles:
- Anders Jensen – Identification of age-related changes within the extracellular matrix of dental tissues
- Genna Abdullah – Neutrophil function in inflammation, ageing, and frailty
- Hannah Coleman – The immunomodulatory properties of limbal mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs): a novel stem cell source treatment for age-related macular degeneration.
- Kia Prescott – Posterior Eye Biomechanics: Age-dependent Implications for the Planning of Surgical Procedures
- Konstantinos Prokopidis – Towards diagnosis of secondary sarcopenia as comorbidity in heart failure: a multivariate biomarker approach
2022 Awards:
Award amount: £199,974
Students and Project titles:
- Elli Tsintzas – Serotonin’s role in neurodegeneration and lifespan
- Samuel Taylor – Establishing new pathways that protect the ageing proteome
- Xiaoya Wei – Dissecting lipid metabolism and glial pathology in brain ageing
Award amount: £184,454
Students and Project titles:
- Freya Thompson – Unravelling the complexity of inequalities in hospital care for people living with multiple long-term conditions: a mixed-methods approach
- Georgia Townend – Exploring future health and care needs for people with multiple long-term conditions in new care environments
- Hilary Shepherd – Unravelling inequalities between multimorbidity and polypharmacy in older people using big data
- Maria Kyriazi – Epigenetic alterations in cellular ageing
Award amount: £191,398
Students and Project titles:
- Evie Harms – Exploring the role of neural excitability as a modulator of physical function across the life-course
- Rosie Bailey – Investigating central and peripheral contributions to motor unit firing and physical function across the life-course
- Elsa Greed – Determining a role for nutrition in the modulation of neural excitability and neuromuscular drive
- TBA – Delineating the influence of changes in neural excitability and neuromuscular drive on muscle anabolic potential in old age
Award amount: £200,000
Students and Project titles:
- Kyle Wardlaw – Mechanisms by which brain and body signals combine to accelerate dementia
- Ya Yin Chang – Investigating synaptic compensation and repair mechanisms counteracting synapse loss
- Vasilios Raptis – Dissecting the genetic risk factors of delirium and identification of therapeutic targets
- Shuo Xu – Preventing rehospitalizations of older acute care survivors using longitudinal physical and mental health monitoring with wearable sensors and smartphones
- Yiqing Wang – The neurocognitive consequences of acute cardiac injury and inflammation
Award amount: £199,566
Students and Project titles:
- Hio Tong Pang – Supporting intergenerational communication
- Lucy Halamova – Supporting future care decisions
- Maria Nygaard – Supporting health behaviours
Award amount: £199,000
Students and Project titles:
- Sally Hoodless – Technology-assisted implementation of Falls Management Exercise (FaME) falls prevention programme among community-dwelling older adults
- Danielle Harris – Addressing the effects of COVID-19 pandemic lockdown deconditioning
- Yang Yang – Addressing inactivity amongst older people from UK’s Chinese ethnic minority
- Schenelle Dlima – Frailty progression and maintaining independence to age in place
- Bibhusha Karki – Co-development of a digital activity program for older people from minority and ethnic communities
- Lily Mott – Developing health promoting activity in the workplace
Award amount: £199,565
Students and Project titles:
- Brenda Morrison – The Pharmaceutical Care of OPwSI
- Kullapat Chaiyawat – Medicinal Product Design for OPwSI
- Parastoo Zali – Facilitation of Navigation for OPwSI
- Eugene Asante – Person-centred consultations for OPwSI
Congratulations to each of the successful applicants and we wish each of the students every success with their projects. We also posted a news item containing feedback from the last round of applications, which we hope is useful for those thinking of applying to the next round of the scheme which will be open to applications later in May 2023.