Melda Tozluoglu of the Cancer Research UK London Research Institute (CRUK LRI) has been named winner of the 2012 Pontecorvo Prize for her thesis, which the panel of judges described as ‘a masterpiece’.
The Pontecorvo Prize is awarded yearly for the best PhD thesis submitted by a Cancer Research UK-funded PhD student. Melda, from Prof Paul Bates’ Biomolecular Modelling Group at the LRI, working in a collaboration with Dr Erik Sahai’s Tumour Cell Biology Group, wins £500 and funding to attend the 2013 NCRI conference. Dr Tozluoglu’s PhD work has recently been published in Nature Cell Biology, and you can read a summary of it on the Francis Crick Institute website.
The prize is funded through the generosity of Prof Peter Goodfellow, formerly Head of the Human Molecular Genetics Laboratory at the Lincoln's Inn Fields labs (now the CRUK London Research Institute). It’s named after the geneticist Professor Guido Pontecorvo. Affectionately known as Ponte, he worked at the Lincoln's Inn Fields labs from 1968-1975.
Melda commented: "Receiving such an acknowledgement, the stamp of approval under ‘Ponte's’ name, really makes me proud, at the same time gives me a new level of responsibility, responsibility to live up to this in the next piece of work I would produce. It is ever so encouraging and humbling at the same time.”
This year’s judging panel was made up of Professor Roger Griffin, Dr Charlotte Bevan, Professor Penny Jeggo, Professor Michael Stumpf, and Professor Bryan Turner.
They gave special commendation to Rebecca Burrell from Prof Charlie Swanton’s CRUK LRI lab, and commented that all the nominees had achieved a great deal during their PhDs:
We’re now looking for the nominees for the 2013 Pontecorvo prize before the deadline of 22 January 2014. Check the Pontecorvo Prize webpage or contact Carl.Thompson@cancer.org.uk for more information and a nomination pack.
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