Wellcome Trust Grant for Dr Helen Price
Dr Helen Price has won a Wellcome Trust Seed Award to investigate the use of nanoparticles in therapy for leishmaniasis.
Dr Price, who studies the kinetoplastid parasites Leishmania and Trypanosoma (causative agents of leishmaniasis and sleeping sickness in humans), will use the award to investigate the potential of nanoparticles in a highly novel therapy for cutaneous leishmaniasis. She joined Keele from York University in autumn 2013 and this award, of £92,606, is her first major grant with support to employ research staff. Dr Price, of the Centre for Applied Entomology and Parasitology (CAEP), will collaborate with Dr Neil Telling and Dr Clare Hoskins (Institute for Science and Technology in Medicine), exploiting Keele's world-leading expertise in the use of magnetic nanoparticles.
Wellcome Seed Awards provide flexible funding to enable researchers to develop novel ideas. Their exploratory nature gives scope for the use of bold or innovative methodologies, in exactly the type of project proposed here by Dr Price to develop novel leishmaniasis therapies.