We are delighted to share that Pleasantine Mill, a prominent researcher working at the Human Genetics Unit (HGU) at the University of Edinburgh and an ESRIC associate, has been awarded the prestigious British Society for Cell Biology WICB Early Career Medal. Pleasantine is an invaluable member of our ESRIC team of experts with her in-depth knowledge and experience in human genetics and disease and how to study them using advanced microscopy.
The award was established in 2015 to mark the 50th anniversary of the founding of the BSCB. The award celebrates early-career women who are making outstanding scientific contributions in cell biology.
Pleasantine undertook her PhD in Molecular Genetics at the University of Toronto, Canada. She has been a Programme Leader since 2014 and focuses on understanding the role of genetic variation of mammalian cilia in a wide spectrum of clinical features in ciliopathy patients. Ciliopathies are a diverse class of human genetic diseases, with over 20 recognized syndromes caused by mutations at ~100 different loci.
Whilst at the HGU Pleasantine initiated a forward genetic mutagenesis screen in mice to discover novel genes or processes involved in neural crest development as well as isolating and mapping several novel mutant lines which disrupted developmental signalling, leading to greater insight into defects in cilia structure or function. Since becoming a group leader Pleasantine has continued her work into ciliopathies and developed new resources to help profile different disease-relevant mammalian cilia types in an unbiased and sensitive way. She hopes that improved understanding of diversity of the mammalian cilia repertoire will inform novel therapeutic strategies for ciliopathies.
Pleasantine will recieve her medal at the BSCB/BSDB main spring meeting at the University of Warwick, 7th to 10th April 2019. Well done Pleasantine! A fantastic achievement!
Applications were invited from PhD and MScR postgrad students from across Edinburgh who are using imaging in research.
ESRIC is always very supportive of the PhD Expo, run by Edinburgh Imaging, and this year our ESRIC facility manager, Ali Dun, was on the judging panel. This event is a rare chance for PhD students to really challenge themselves and hone their presenting skills in an audience of fellow PhD students, post-doctorates and group leaders in the field of microscopy (not just clinical and medical imaging). PhD students from all areas of microscopy were invited to apply to present their work or just come along to this free networking event, with chances to present posters and meet with fellow imagers and industry partners. The attendance by Industry representatives is a great opportunity to explore a different side of science, see how the work we do is put into practice and discover possible alternative career trajectories. There were significant prizes for the best presentation!
The winners were:
Best Clinical Oral presentation, receiving £200
Student: Jack ANDREWS
Title: “18F-FLUORIDE PET-MR IN VALVULAR AND CORONARY HEART DISEASE”
Highly Commended Clinical Oral presentation
Student: Beth YORK
Title: “Quantitative imaging biomarkers of demyelination and remyelination: reproducibility of MTsat vs. MTR.”
Best Preclinical Oral presentation, receiving £200
Student: Benjamin THOMAS
Title: “PET/CT: identifying sex differences in glucose disposal in calorie restriction”
Highly Commended Preclinical Oral presentation
Student: Adrian GARCIA BURGOS
Title: “Three-dimensional Super-Resolution imaging in living intact pancreatic islets”
Best Visual presentation receiving £50
Student: Sally VANDEN-HEHIR
Title: “New tools for visualising nanoparticle delivery to promote healthy remyelination”
Highly Commended Visual presentation:
Student: Wendy MCDOUGALD
Title: “Multi-centre standardization of preclinical PET/CT imaging: a necessary step towards achieving translational imaging datasets”
