Pain imaging story scoops win in MRC contest
29 July 2008
An account of research to beat chronic pain triumphed in this year’s science writing competition for MRC PhD students. Michael Lee, from the FMRIB Centre, John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, won first prize in the eleventh annual MRC Max Perutz competition.
Michael’s winning entry, Pain: it’s all in your head, is published in Tuesday’s Guardian. He receives a prize of £1,000.
Also published online in the Guardian are the two runners-up – Sophie Farooque, at the MRC and Asthma UK Centre in Allergic Mechanisms of Asthma, and Clare Watkinson, at the MRC Epidemiology Unit in Cambridge. Sophie’s essay is entitled: The cold that never goes away – understanding aspirin sensitive respiratory disease; and Clare’s is: Every little helps: promoting physical activity for health. They receive £500 each.
There were three Highly Commended entrants, each receiving £200, who showed flair and promise for writing about their science with style. These were Adrian Fraser, Scottish Centre for Regenerative Medicine, Edinburgh, with How to grow a thymus; Judith Johnson, University of Manchester, with Resilience to suicide: protective barrier or reduced risk? and Rebecca Robey, Department of Immunology, Imperial College London, with Up close and personal with a herpesvirus.
The winners received their prizes at an award ceremony on 23 July at the National Portrait Gallery. To congratulate them was Professor Robin Perutz, son of Professor Max Perutz who was a world-renowned scientist and head of the MRC’s Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge.
The entire shortlist of 13 students received a copy of the book Max Perutz and the Secret of Life by Georgina Ferry, who was a judge on the panel. Other judges were: Professor Leszek Borysiewicz, MRC Chief Executive; Professor Amanda Fisher from Imperial College London, Alok Jha, science correspondent at The Guardian; Dr Adrian Owen from the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge; and Laura Nelson, MRC science writer.
The shortlisted entrants also attended a writing masterclass on 23 July with Ruth Padel, prize-winning poet and chair of the UK Poetry Society, and Alok Jha. The students learned tips on language and style, how to identify a story and advice on how to keep a reader’s interest. Following on from the class, the students will revise their essays which will be published in an MRC booklet.
The other shortlisted entrants were: Luke Boulter, MRC Centre for Inflammation Research, The Queen’s Medical Research Institute, Edinburgh, with Problems beyond Prometheus; Edward Carr, Cambridge Institute for Medical Research, with Being Frank about vasculitis; Alastair Denniston, Institute of Biomedical Research, University of Birmingham, with The Incredible Lightness of Seeing; Victoria Hallett, Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, Kings College London, with All for one or one for all?; Emily Klineberg, Centre for Psychiatry, Wolfson Institute, Barts & The London School of Medicine & Dentistry, with Self-Harm: It’s a way out, innit; Natalie Silmon de Monerri, National Institute for Medical Research, London, with Laying Siege to the Malaria Parasite; and Kate Weber, MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, with Seeing the trees in the forest: understanding the neural networks of a worm.
