Dan Edwards, a postdoctoral research associate in the group, has been awarded a prestigious early postdoctoral fellowship from the Chief Scientist Office (CSO), part of the Scottish Government Health Directorate. Dan did his PhD with Prof. Scott Cockroft and Dr Amanda Jarvis, and joined the ESMB group as part of a Leverhulme-funded project between Prof. Scott Cockroft and Prof. Mathew Horrocks. Dan has previously won the Institute for Regeneration and Repair's Innovator 2026 competition, and runs an outreach science activity funded by AIBIO-UK. He's also on the School's Post-Doc Committee.   Dan will begin the three-year fellowship this year with a project focused on advancing Parkinson's disease diagnosis through biomarkers that enable early detection from accessible biofluids.  On the award, Dan said: "It is an honour to be awarded the CSO early postdoctoral fellowship. This award will give me the time and resources to develop assays to improve our approaches to ...

Noelia has become the second member of the group to win the Joseph Black Conference science photo competition. Her photo, entitled "Ground Breaking Science", shows Tianxiao and Kris determining the focal length of a lens in the corridor of the Chemistry School. 

Dan has been awarded the IRR Innovator 2026 prize, along with £5,000 in research funding. Dan's winning idea centres on the use of extracellular vesicles, tiny particles that can be isolated from all biological fluids, as a tool for the early diagnosis of Parkinson's disease, a breakthrough approach with significant clinical potential. The competition was organised in partnership with Dr Andrew McBryde of Edinburgh Innovations' ITPA Translational Community, and judged by a distinguished panel of industry experts: Hayley Gooding (Concept Life Sciences), Lissa Herron (Converge Challenge), and Douglas Gibson (previous IRR Innovator winner). Dan said: The IRR Innovator competition provided a fantastic opportunity to present my research to a broad audience and think creatively about its future commercial impact. I'm grateful for the insight and comments from the panel and look forward to using the award to progress my research.

Last weekend ESMB PhD students   Sofia   and Ellie attended the 29th EAP meeting held by the Analytical Science Network in Kettering, with both of them giving talks about their projects. Ellie presented her research on imaging and detecting PM2.5s in the brain, while   Sofia   spoke about her work designing a nanopore sensing platform for early diagnosis of ovarian cancer. The conference was a fantastic opportunity to meet fellow PhD students working in analytical science, as well as to network with industry and academic professionals in these fields.

Mathew has been selected as a finalist among 9 Young Scientists from Across the UK Shortlisted for Largest Unrestricted Science Prize. Three Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists Laureates will receive £100,000 prizes at a 24 February gala in London. The Blavatnik Family Foundation and The New York Academy of Sciences today announced the Finalists for the 2026 Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists in the United Kingdom. The Awards recognise scientific advances by UK researchers across Life Sciences, Chemical Sciences, and Physical Sciences & Engineering. On Tuesday, 24 February, Professor Deborah Prentice, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, will reveal the three 2026 Laureates at a gala dinner and awards ceremony in London. Now in its ninth year, each Blavatnik Awards Laureate will receive an unrestricted £100,000 prize, while the remaining six Finalists will be awarded £30,000 each. Commenting on this remarkable achievement, Mathew said: I am delighted to have been no...

Huge congratulations to Haresh, who has passed his PhD viva. Thank you to Aleks Ponjavic and Ewen Calder for examining!

We're happy to welcome Ellie (PhD student), Muye (PhD student), and Charlie (5P student) to the group. We wish them the best of luck with their projects!