Image credit: Wellcome Sanger Institute
Postdoctoral researchers at the Wellcome Sanger Institute are at the forefront of scientific knowledge and driving world-leading research. They are also training to be the next generation of leaders in genomics and beyond, so our Postdoc Programme provides diverse opportunities for career development.
In 2022 we launched the Sanger Accelerator Awards for Postdocs (SAAPs), an internal funding scheme to accelerate postdocs in their career progress. SAAPs provide experience in grant applications, idea pitching and competing for independent funding. The winners also receive expert feedback from a scientific review panel, practice interview techniques and develop skills in budgeting and project management. The 2024 awards amount to £35,000, co-funded by Sanger’s portion of the UKRI Talent and Research Stabilisation Fund.
We celebrated our first two SAAPs winners in February 2023, and we are delighted to announce four new winners for 2024. Learn more about these talented researchers and their projects below.
“This year we received an exciting range of innovative applications, which is a testament to the diversity of skills, backgrounds and ideas within our postdoc community. I can’t wait to see what the winners achieve with their awards.”
Diane Swallow
Postdoc Programme Lead, Academic Programmes Team, Wellcome Sanger Institute
Dr Ana-Maria Cujba
Ana-Maria is awarded £5,000 for a research visit to Helmholtz Munich.
About the project:
Blood-borne immune cells are central to the body's immune response against viral diseases. Despite the team and collaborators analysing millions of cells from over 2,000 people, both with and without COVID-19, combining the data is challenging.
Anna-Maria will use the award to visit her collaborator, Michaela Mueller, in Helmholtz-Munich to learn advanced Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques. She will then correlate the immune cells with disease outcomes, revealing which cells are crucial for effective immune responses and creating an ‘immune cell atlas’. This could help clinicians predict outcomes and treatments for both COVID-19 and other viral infections, and move towards personalised medicine.
“The award offers me the opportunity to learn a new skill: state-of-art machine learning approaches for large-scale single-cell data analysis. My visit to Helmholz-Munich will be my first time working outside the UK, and will help expand my research network internationally. I am very grateful for the supportive environment for postdocs at Sanger.”
Dr Ana-Maria Cujba
Teichmann group, Cellular Genetics programme, Wellcome Sanger Institute
Dr Ellen Cameron
Ellen is granted £11,600 to research new techniques to understand molecular interactions in lichen
About the project:
Lichens are symbiotic systems of fungi and algae, which are found in diverse habitats including wood and stone. A common UK lichen called Xanthoria parietina is well-studied, but scientists do not know how its fungi and lichen interact at the molecular level.
Current techniques are limited to predicting species interactions, so Ellen will use her award to test alternative advanced molecular methods. Ellen aims to create the first single-cell atlas for a lichen species, enhancing scientific understanding of symbiotic systems and their environmental interactions.
“The award will provide me with critical experience in new molecular techniques and data analyses, as well as research project management. I am incredibly excited to be working at the forefront of the field, with the potential to advance our understanding of the diversity of species interactions in lichen symbioses. The results could enhance the fields of microbial ecology and symbioses biology.”
Dr Ellen Cameron
Blaxter group, Tree of Life programme, Wellcome Sanger Institute
Dr Karin Näsvall
Karin receives £8,000 to develop a new technique to create genome recombination maps
About the project:
Recombination, or reshuffling of genetic material, preserves genetic diversity in species and may confer survival benefits. However, scientists have a limited knowledge of the process. Existing techniques are cumbersome because they involve rearing large numbers of offspring to estimate the diversity.
With this award, Karin will develop a new method using butterfly sperm cells to create a detailed genome recombination map. If successful, this may be a fast and cost-effective way to explore recombination in organisms across the tree of life, benefitting research into biodiversity, speciation and conservation.
“As well as exploring a new method to understand the recombination process, the award will enable me to lay the foundation for my future research direction. I aim to scale up the analysis of recombination rates across whole groups of butterflies, with and without chromosomal rearrangements, to disentangle the various evolutionary forces on speciation and diversity.”
Dr Karin Näsvall
Meier group, Tree of Life programme, Wellcome Sanger Institute
Dr Sarah Buddenborg
Sarah is awarded £10,000 for her project to study parasitic worms at the single-cell level
About the project:
Parasitic worms (or helminths) infect over 1.5 billion people and countless animals worldwide, causing widespread health problems. Understanding the survival and adaptations of these worms inside their hosts may enable researchers to develop better treatments.
Sarah will use her award to make cell maps of female and male gastrointestinal (gut) worms called Haemonchus contortus, which infect sheep and goats. Her work will help reveal how these worms grow, thrive and respond to drug treatment. It will also show differences in cell types and functions between male and female worms, which may help scientists to identify new drug targets.
“I will begin my project shortly after returning to work from maternity leave, so it will be a challenging transition, but also something exciting to look forward to. The award will expand my skill set to new technologies that are under-utilised in helminth biology and will make my research distinctive from that of my mentor and colleagues in the same field.”
Dr Sarah Buddenborg
Doyle group, Parasites and Microbes programme, Wellcome Sanger Institute
