Melanie Blokesch awarded HHMI International Research Scholarship
Melanie Blokesch (credit: Alain Herzog/EPFL) and a scanning electron micrograph of Vibrio cholerae attached to biotic surfaces (credit: Graham Knott & Melanie Blokesch/EPFL)
Professor Melanie Blokesch has been announced as an International Research Scholar by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI).
The International Research Scholars Program, which was initiated by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) together with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Wellcome Trust, and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, selects and supports highly qualified scientists working in selected countries outside the US and UK. The candidates must be in the early stages of their careers and have outstanding scientific training records and research accomplishments that show “high potential for significant productivity and originality in their independent careers.”
This year, the Program has selected 41 successful candidates out of nearly 1500 applications. The awardees will receive research funding over the next five years. It is noteworthy that the guiding principle of the Program is “people, not projects”, focusing on science with a direct impact on humanity. Within a broad range of research areas, “researchers have the freedom to explore, and if necessary, to change direction in their research.” The funding organizations state: “We are interested in the full range of the work you are doing and planning to do, regardless of current sources of funding.”
Professor Melanie Blokesch at EPFL’s School of Life Sciences is one of the Program awardees. Her research focuses on the bacterium Vibrio cholerae that causes the severe diarrheal disease cholera. In the past, her group has studied the environmental lifestyle of V. cholerae and the general question on how pathogen emergence occurs in nature. Professor Blokesch’s future research vision is to better understand the link between environmental niches that are occupied by V. cholerae (such as zooplankton-derived chitinous surfaces and amoebal cysts) and the transmission of the bacterium to humans in endemic areas. A key aspect of this work will be the elucidation of the molecular mechanisms that drive such transitions.
The Program aims at supporting research that focuses on basic biological processes that are linked to biology and medicine. “This is a major honor for me and a great opportunity,” says Melanie Blokesch. “It will allow me to establish novel approaches in my lab and to delve into exciting new research areas. I therefore expect this scholarship to significantly strengthen our research on the pathoecology of V. cholerae.”
Links
The Howard Hughes Medical Institute www.hhmi.org
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation www.gatesfoundation.org/
The Wellcome Trust www.wellcome.ac.uk
The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation www.gulbenkian.pt/inst/en/Homepage