Top ranking EPSRC fellowship for UoB academic

Congratulations to Dr Paula Mendes, a Senior Lecturer in the School of Chemical Engineering, who has not only been awarded a Fellowship by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), but was the top ranked recipient of the honour. Fellowships are awarded to world-leading individuals who are delivering the highest quality research to meet UK and global priorities, and to develop the next generation of researchers with the greatest potential across postdoctoral, early, and established career stages.

"It's a great honour and privilege to be a recipient of this fellowship” said Dr Mendes, “it will boost our research into the development of advanced surface technologies that will lead to entirely new and powerful materials and tools for biological and medical applications. The fellowship will not only provide me with the freedom to concentrate on research for the next five years, but will allow me to recruit two young and two more experienced researchers and foster and support a wide network of international collaborations.”

Dr Mendes received the Early Career Fellowship for her research into surface-based molecular imprinting for glycoprotein recognition. This collaborative project between the University of Birmingham, Serascience Limited, University of California, and University of Washington will deliver unique and world-leading research activity in the development of synthetic recognition platforms.

This will allow for earlier, faster and accurate diagnosis of many devastating human diseases such as cancer, immune deficiencies, neurodegenerative diseases, hereditary disorders and cardiovascular diseases. The aim of the project is to develop novel sensor platforms to the detection of glycoproteins which can discriminate between different protein glycoforms, thus transforming the field of diagnostic testing. The group will conduct cutting edge research and will make pioneering contributions to the emerging field of bionanotechnology.