The Blavatnik Family Foundation and the New York Academy of Sciences honoured nine outstanding scientists in the field of Physical Sciences and Engineering, Chemical Sciences, and Life Sciences at the seventh annual ceremony of the Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists held at the historic Banqueting House in Whitehall, London, on February 27, 2024.
The Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists in the UK are the most significant unrestricted grants totalling 4,80,000 pounds for the UK-based young innovative scientists under the age of 42. The awards have contributed 3.3 million pounds (US$ 4.2 million) since their inception to support researchers in UK academia. The 2024 awards had received 84 nominations from 40 academic and research institutions.
Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists was established in 2007 through a partnership between Sir Leonard Blavatnik, founder of Blavatnik Family Foundation and founder and Chairman of Access Industries, and Professor Nicholas B. Dirks, the President and CEO of the New York Academy of Sciences and Chair of the Award’s Scientific Advisory Council.
In the beginning, selected faculty and post-doctoral researchers in the life sciences, physical sciences, and engineering at institutions in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, who were 42 years and younger were awarded these financial grants each year. In 2017, the Blavatnik Awards programme was expanded to the UK and Israel. Till 2022, prize amount totalling to US$ 13.6 million has been awarded to young scientists who have hailed from 48 countries across six continents. The laureates are selected by an independent jury of expert scientists across the UK.
The Blavantik Awards for Young Scientists in the UK recognises research that has been transforming medicine and technology. It is awarded mainly to faculty-rank scientists and engineers in three categories: Chemistry; Physical Sciences and Engineering; and Life Sciences. It is a national competition across the UK in which a Laureate and two finalists in each of three categories are chosen, for every award cycle. The prize money for the Laureates is 1,00,000 pounds and finalists are awarded 30,000 pounds each.
The 2024 laureates who won the award are Professor Anthony P. Green (Chemistry), Rahul R. Nair (Physical Sciences and Engineering), and Dr Nicholas McGranahan (Life Sciences).
The other two finalists in each category are Fernando Duarte and Samuel D. Stranks in Chemistry, Jayne Birkby and Mehul Malik in Physical Sciences and Engineering, and Tanmay Bharat and Yiliang Ding in Life Sciences.
Anthony P. Green, a Professor of Organic and Biological Chemistry at the University of Manchester, is recognised for enzyme design and engineering to catalyse chemical processes, which is not possible using conventional procedures. Based on the fundamentals of synthetic chemistry, he created and evolved unique enzymes to conduct important chemical processes, uncovering synthetic routes hitherto unknown in chemistry laboratories or nature.
Dr Nicholas McGranahan is a Sir Henry Dale Fellow at University College London, specialising in genetics and genomics. He is renowned for his work in developing computational analyses to understand tumour development and treatment. His work has established a foundation for studying tumour development as an evolutionary process. It enables researchers to understand genetic faults accumulated during tumour development, predict tumour trajectory, and design more effective cancer treatments.
According to Leonard Blavatnik, providing recognition and funding early in a scientist’s career could make the difference between discoveries that would remain in the lab and those that would make transformative scientific breakthroughs.
Rahul R. Nair is of Indian-origin and a Professor of Materials Physics at the University of Manchester. He was named Laureate in Physical Sciences and Engineering. Rahul was honoured for developing novel membranes based on two-dimensional (2D) materials that would enable energy efficient separation and filtration technologies. His cutting-edge work in chemical sciences paved the way for advancements in materials science and nano-technology. His research into graphene and other 2D materials has the potential to transform a variety of industries, including electronics, energy and health care. His research intends to analyse the transport of water, organic molecules, and ions at the nanoscale using graphene and other 2D materials. This would further help in exploring possible applications to address societal difficulties such as water filtration and other separation technologies.
Professor Nair was awarded 1,00,000 pounds in unrestricted funds by the Blavatnik Foundation. According to the award statement, his research has provided valuable insights into the movement of water and other molecules in nano-capillaries, as those movements differ from their behaviour on the macro scale.
Two other Indian origin scientists, Mehul Malik and Tanmay Bharat, are recognised for their work.
Professor Mehul Malik was one of the award finalists in the field of Physical Sciences and Engineering. He was recognised for his work on advancing quantum communications. Malik has done Ph.D. from University of Rochester in New York. His pioneering research in the field of physical sciences has been centred on the development of novel optical technologies. His research in quantum optics and photonics has led to new avenues for high-resolution imaging, quantum computing, and ultrafast communication.
Professor Mehul Malik’s discoveries made it possible for the typically fragile entanglement to sustain in long distances and adverse conditions. This has laid the foundation for high-capacity, noise resistant quantum networks that safely transmit vast volumes of information encoded on individual photons.
Dr Tanmay Bharat is a structural microbiologist and programme leader in the Structural Studies Division at the Medical Research Council (MRC) Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, England, UK. He was one of the finalists in the field of Life Sciences. His significant contributions to the field of life sciences include his research on bacterial infection mechanisms. He has developed and applied pioneering techniques in electron cryotomography (cryo-ET) for the creation of atomic-level pictures of cell-surface molecules produced by microscopic bacteria and archaea. They form multicellular communities including biofilms and microbiomes.
His work has given insight to the molecular processes involved in bacterial pathogenesis. Additionally, it has the potential to inform the development of new strategies for combating antibiotic resistance. His work has vital biomedical implications, as most pathogenic bacteria infect humans through biofilm formation. However, it further has implications for the fundamental understanding of the dynamics of cell-to-cell interactions that has led to the evolution of multicellular life on Earth.
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