Dr Greg Findlay, a group leader in the Medical Research Council Protein Phosphorylation and Ubiquitylation Unit (MRC-PPU) at the University of Dundee, has been awarded a prestigious Sir Henry Dale Fellowship from the Wellcome Trust and Royal Society.

This award provides Greg’s laboratory with 5 years funding worth £1 million that will allow him to study a newly discovered control mechanism for Embryonic Stem Cell (ESC) development that could help in the treatment of heart disease in the future.

Dr Findlay explained, “A major challenge in the stem cell field is to understand how stem cells become a specialised cell such as a heart cell, and how instructions are sent for this happen. My lab recently discovered a new molecular signal, controlled by an enzyme called ERK5, which instructs ESCs to remain pluripotent, a property that allows them to form all cell types, tissues and organs in the adult body”.

“This generous fellowship award will allow us to study this process in greater depth, and use this knowledge to improve laboratory-based approaches to develop tissues such as heart from ESCs for cell replacement therapy and further research.”

The research undertaken to answer these questions will cover a wide breadth of techniques that utilizes the diverse facilities available in the MRC-PPU and Schools of Life Sciences and Medicine. These are the facilities for stem cell culture and maintenance, cell imaging, flow cytometry, proteomics and transcriptomics.

The Sir Henry Dale Fellowships scheme is a partnership between the Royal Society and the Wellcome Trust. Fellowships are open to early-career scientists ready to lead their own independent research programme who have already made important contributions to their area of speciality.