The University of Nottingham’s School of Pharmacy has been singled out by the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain (RPSGB) to help promote the next generation of research talent.
The School of Pharmacy will host an Academic Excellence Award in 2008 — a prestigious programme of PhD studentships offered by the RPSGB.
Nottingham was one of only two UK institutions selected from among 23 applicants, after a judging process involving a panel of distinguished pharmacy academics.
The RPSGB Academic Excellence Awards are designed to increase the number of pharmacists who enter and stay in academia as a career by providing funding to enable exceptional pharmacists and pharmacy graduates to undertake PhD training. The scheme promotes the important role played by members of the academic workforce in developing and leading the profession of pharmacy.
Professor Saul Tendler, Head of the School of Pharmacy, University of Nottingham, said: “I was thrilled to learn that we have been successful in this prestigious competition.
“Winning such an award adds to our internationally-leading research base and further boosts our buoyant postgraduate research activities. At the same time the award pleasingly provides us with strong and continued links with the RPSGB.”
The University will host an award for research with the title ‘Selective inhibitors for nuclear receptors: an alternative to anti-hormone therapies’, supervised by Professor David Heery. This work investigates the mechanisms by which genes are switched on or off in healthy or diseased human cells.
One family of gene regulators being studied are the steroid receptors, which are switched on or ‘activated’ when they bind hormones such as oestrogen or androgens. The activated receptors bind other proteins termed coactivators, which are required to switch on genes. The project will investigate how short sequences in the coactivator proteins (termed LXXLL motifs) facilitate these interactions.
Steroid receptors are important drug targets in breast and prostate cancers, which are hormone-dependent tumours. Drugs known as anti-hormones can be effective in treating and preventing these diseases. Anti-hormones work by competing with normal oestrogens or androgens to bind the steroid receptors, thus blocking their function.
However, as some tumours can develop resistance to these drugs, there is a need for alternative therapies. A long-term goal of the Nottingham research is to develop novel chemical inhibitors of steroid receptors — and the RPSGB Academic Excellence award 2008 will make an important contribution to ongoing research in this area.
The award is only the latest accolade for the highly-rated School of Pharmacy. In April this year the School won a Queen’s Award for Enterprise in the category of Innovation.
Cardiff University was the other institution to be successful in the Academic Excellence Awards for 2008.
Ann Lewis, RPSGB Secretary and Registrar, and Chair of the Academic Excellence Awards Panel, said: “Pharmacy is entering a period of great change and development.
“At this time it is fundamental that we continue to encourage the best pharmacists and pharmacy graduates to continue into postgraduate research and training, ensuring the brightest possible future for the profession.
“The two successful schools were selected, in part, for the excellent research environment and supervisory experience they will provide to researchers choosing an academic career path.”
Notes to editors:
The University of Nottingham is Britain's University of the Year (The Times Higher Awards 2006). It undertakes world-changing research, provides innovative teaching and a student experience of the highest quality. Ranked by Newsweek in the world's Top 75 universities, its academics have won two Nobel Prizes since 2003. The University is an international institution with campuses in the United Kingdom, Malaysia and China.
The Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain (RPSGB) is the regulatory and professional body for pharmacists in England, Scotland and Wales. The primary objective of the RPSGB is to lead, regulate and develop the pharmacy profession.
More information is available from Professor Saul Tendler, head of the School of Pharmacy, University of Nottingham, on +44 (0)115 951 5101, saul.tendler@nottingham.ac.uk; Professor David Heery, School of Pharmacy, University of Nottingham, +44 (0)115 951 5087, david.heery@nottingham.ac.uk; Media Relations Manager Tim Utton in the University’s Media and Public Relations Office on +44 (0)115 846 8092, tim.utton@nottingham.ac.uk; or the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain’s Public Relations Unit, on +44 (0)20 7572 2335/2653.