Edinburgh MRC scientists scoop prestigious writing award
September 2011
Two young scientists from the Medical Research Council (MRC) in Edinburgh have been honoured in The Max Perutz Science Writing Prize, a national competition organised by the MRC.
The award is aimed at supporting and rewarding scientists to convey the importance and excitement of their work in a way that is accessible to everyone. MRC-funded PhD students were asked to write 800 compelling words about their research in a way that would interest a non-scientific audience. This year's essays, as ever, were written with passion and skill, covering an array of topics, from strokes to sleeping sickness, blood pressure to bipolar disorder.
The judging panel included MRC chief executive, Sir John Savill; Guardian science and environment correspondent, Alok Jha; science writer, author and broadcaster, Georgina Ferry; director of the MRC Clinical Trials Unit, Professor Mahesh Parmar; and last year's Max Perutz winner, Nicola Illingworth from Newcastle University. All judges noted the exceptionally high standard of this year's shortlisted entries. Catherine Mercer of the HGU was shortlisted for the award in 2010.
The writers of the shortlisted entries were invited to attend an awards reception in London. The Edinburgh-based winners were John Rushton, from the Centre for Molecular Medicine, University of Edinburgh and Neshika Samarasekera, from the Division of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Edinburgh. Professor Max Perutz, who died in 2002, was a world-renowned scientist who helped to found and later led the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for discovering the structure of the blood protein haemoglobin.
Professor Perutz inspired countless young scientists and encouraged them to communicate their research in plain language to those whose lives are changed through their work.
Related Links
For more information about the competition and to enter next year
Wt1 Flip-Flops Chromatin in a CTCF Domain
October 2011
Dr Abdelkader Essafi and colleagues in Prof Nick Hastie’s laboratory at the MRC Human Genetics Unit elucidates a new mechanism of tissue-specific transcriptional regulation termed “chromatin flip-flop” that is mediated mainly by the insulator barrier function of CCCTC-binding factor (CCTF) (Essafi et al, Developmental Cell (2011) Sep 13;21(3):559-74).
Essafi et al define the chromatin flip-flop as “the reciprocal switching of chromatin structure between two insulating CTCF sites in a tissue specific manner that is regulated by the same transcription factor”.
The work has been highlighted in the same issue of Developmental Cell by a preview written by Dr B.V. Gurudatta and Prof. Victor Corces. Prof Corces is an HHMI investigator and a world expert on insulator proteins, tissue-specific gene expression and nuclear organisation. Commenting on the work, Gurudatta and Corces said, “The findings of Essafi et al. (2011) now convincingly demonstrate that CTCF can also have barrier insulator activity”.(Gurudatta and Corces Developmental Cell (2011) Sep13;21(3):389-90).
The work was supported by the Wellcome Trust through a Beit Memorial Fellowship to Dr Abdelkader Essafi, as well as the MRC and EuReGene, a Framework 6 program grant by the EU.
Professor Nick Hastie Laboratory(MRC Human Genetics Unit)
Related Links
Preview: Gurudatta and Corces (2011)
