Dr Durrant wins SULSA Early Career Researcher award 

We are delighted to announce that RAD-Dyson fellow Dr Claire Durrant has won the Scottish Universities Life Sciences Alliance (SULSA) award for early career researchers in the “understanding and treating disease” theme.

The SULSA ECR prize is designed to “award outstanding early career scientists whose work shows excellent potential to make an impact in the life sciences”. After submitting a written application, Dr Durrant was shortlisted for the final, held virtually due to COVID-19.  Here, finalists had just 3 minutes and 1 slide to present their work to a general audience, followed by questions from the judging panel. Dr Durrant’s presented her work on understanding why synapses, vital connection points between nerve cells that allow them to communicate, are damaged in Alzheimer’s disease. You can watch her winning presentation below and on the SULSA website here: https://www.sulsa.ac.uk/ecr-prize/

Dr Durrant’s award has provided her with £2,000 flexible funding towards her research, as well as £1,000 to support a tour of 3 Scottish Universities (Aberdeen, Dundee and St Andrews) where she will give seminars and meet with local researchers. This provides a fantastic opportunity for Dr Durrant to develop new connections in Scotland and beyond.

This award comes shortly after Dr Durrant received training, provided by RAD, from Lee Bowman at the Kingstree Group. The Kingstree Group help individuals become confident presenters, using their signature conversational style. In preparing for the SULSA ECR presentation, Dr Durrant worked closely with Lee Bowman. She says: “Lee provided me with a fantastic set of tools to help me prepare, and deliver, impactful presentations. Working with Lee gave me a real confidence boost before this competition and I am hugely grateful to RAD and the Kingstree group for investing in my development. Training such as this really highlight how RAD go above and beyond to provide professional development opportunities for their fellows”.