Early career researchers win top poster awards

Early career researchers Katie Miari and Gerard Murphy
Early career researchers Katie Miari and Gerard Murphy

Two early career researchers from GCU's Department of Biological and Biomedical Sciences have won top awards for their research posters by the British Pharmacological Society (BPS).

Katie Miari's poster on combatting cancer therapy resistance in Acute Myeloid Leukaemia (AML) patients and Gerard Murphy's poster on his cutting-edge research into pulmonary hypertension ranked in the top three early career research posters for 2020.

PhD student Katie has been working with blood cancer expert Dr Mark Williams and Post-doctoral researcher Gerard is part of the Scottish Pulmonary Vascular Units translational science laboratory, headed by Dr David Welsh. They were presented with their poster prizes at a recent virtual BPS annual meeting.

Dr Williams said: "2020 was an extremely challenging year for Katie and her peers at GCU. However, Katie's adaptability and resilience have been exemplary, and it is great that the high quality research poster that she has produced and discussed with reviewers, for the virtual BPS meeting, has been recognised by the society in this manner. Congratulations to Katie and Gerry on their achievements."

Dr Welsh said he was "absolutely delighted" that Gerard had received the poster prize.

"It's great to see that his cutting edge research into pulmonary hypertension has been recognised. I'm very proud of his achievements and grateful to the Department of Biological and Biomedical Sciences here at GCU for continuing to support our research," he added.

Katie said she was "truly honoured" to receive the prize and is looking forward to the Pharmacology 2021 event where she hopes to present again.

She added: "Receiving such recognition from the British Pharmacological Society does not only show the strength of the poster itself, which has to be visually appealing and have interesting content, but is also a testament to the quality of research conducted in our lab.

"I am truly honoured to receive such a prize, especially at this early stage of my career and I look forward to Pharmacology 2021 where I can hopefully present my work again."

Gerard said: "It was a pleasant surprise to receive the BPS early career research poster prize. I believe I gave a concise summary of what we had achieved so far and presented a route map of where the research could go in the future."