Long list announced for the 2012 MRC Max Perutz Science Writing Award
5 July 2012
This year’s MRC Max Perutz Award received over a hundred fantastic entries and after much debate and deliberation 29 articles have been selected to form the 2012 long list.
The competition asked MRC researchers to answer the question ‘why does my research matter’ in no more than 800 words. We received entries from across the UK, spanning many areas of science. All entrants showed a real passion and enthusiasm for their research.
Those going forward to the next stage are:
Andrew Bastawrous, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
Rodrigo Braga, MRC Clinical Sciences Centre
Vickie Braithwaite, MRC Human Nutrition Research
Hannah Buggey, The University of Manchester
Thomas Butts, MRC Centre for Developmental Neurobiology
Sarah Caddy, Imperial College London
Holly Barbara Callaghan, Imperial College London
David Connell, Imperial College London
David Ferland-McCollough, MRC Toxicology Unit
James Fuller, University of Southampton
Abigail Herrmann, University of Edinburgh
Emma Hill, MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit
Nicola Hodson, Cambridge Institute for Medical Research
Sara Jabbari, University of Nottingham
Victoria Jenkins, MRC Centre for Molecular Bacteriology and Infection
Diego Kaski, Imperial College London
Ben Martynoga, MRC National Institute for Medical Research
Marianne Neary, MRC National Institute for Medical Research
Sam Nightingale, University of Liverpool
Helen Nuttall, MRC Institute of Hearing Research
Emma Claire Palmer, Kings College London
Ketan Shah, Gray Institute for Radiation, Oncology and Biology – University of Oxford
Sarah Smith, Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute
Greg Weir, MRC Functional Genomics Unit
Toby Wells, MRC Institute of Hearing Research
Billy West, MRC Prion Unit
Ian Wilson, University of Liverpool
Kathryn Yates, MRC Institute of Hearing Research
Vicky Jane Young, MRC Centre for Reproductive Health
Well done to you all and thank you to everyone who took part this year. We will be announcing the 2012 short list in the coming weeks, and these will be judged by a distinguished panel including MRC Chief Executive Sir John Savill. The winner will be revealed at the Max Perutz Award Ceremony in central London on 12 September.
The MRC Max Perutz Award is now in its 15th year and encourages MRC-funded PhD students and early-career researchers to communicate their work to a wider audience. Since the competition started in 1998, hundreds of researches have submitted entries and taken their first steps in science communication.
The award is named in honour of one of the UK’s most outstanding scientists and communicators, Dr Max Perutz. Max, who died in 2002, was awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work using X-ray crystallography to study the structures of globular proteins. He was the founder and first chairman of the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, the lab which unravelled the structure of DNA. Max was also a keen and talented communicator who inspired countless students to use everyday language to share their research with the people whose lives are improved by their work.
