Director’s Catalyst Fund: 2020 awardees
Shivanand Hegde
Dr Shivanand Hegde, a vector biologist at LSTM, was awarded the Director’s Catalyst Fund to study the transmission of the microbial flora between mosquito generations.
Aitor Casas-Sanchez
LSTM’s Dr Aitor Casas-Sanchez was awarded the Director’s Catalyst Fund to investigate the sugars present on viral surface proteins as potential targets for therapy to treat severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2, the causative agent of the current COVID-19 pandemic.
Adriana Adolfi
Dr Adriana Adolfi will be exploring the molecular basis of behavioural responses in insecticide resistant malaria-transmitting mosquitoes.
Elissavet Nikolaou
LSTM’s Dr Elissavet Nikolaou was awarded Director’s Catalyst Funding to establish home sampling as a screening tool for long term monitoring of respiratory diseases in community. Her research will focus on investigating the role of bacterial and viral flora of the upper respiratory tract in respiratory disease.
Rachel Clare
LSTM’s Dr Rachel Clare, within the Centre for Snakebite Research and Interventions, has been awarded a Directors Catalyst Fund to explore the development of a high-throughput drug discovery screen to identify small molecules (drugs) to treat snakebite envenoming.
Naomi Walker
Dr Naomi Walker was awarded Director’s Catalyst Funding to work under the supervision of Henry Mwandumba and Peter MacPherson in LSTM’s Department of Clinical Sciences to investigate markers associated with a TB treatment response, to support the evaluation of therapies for HIV-associated TB, in the UK and Malawi.