27 November 08 – High-quality applications prompt multiple awards

Watford, 27 November 2008: Olympus has announced the two winners of the Olympus Early Career Scientist Microscopy Award. This award, launched at MICROSCIENCE 2008, was set up to offer early career life scientists the opportunity to acquire the long-term loan of an Olympus microscopy system, worth over £150,000. Due to the excellent response and high-quality of the entries, Olympus decided to award two prizes: a Scan^R screening station and a BX51WI upright microscope. The two winners were officially recognised at a celebratory lunch, held by Olympus in London.

Selected from over 50 entries, the first ever Olympus Early Career Scientist Microscopy Award has been presented to two researchers:

Alessandro Bianchi, of the MRC in Sussex, has gained two years unrestricted use of an Olympus Scan^R modular microscope-based imaging platform. This screening station, designed for fully-automated image acquisition and data analysis of biological samples will be used for his work on the characterisation of end-protection and repression of telomerase action at normal-length telomeres.

Wynand Van der Goes van Naters, of Cardiff University School of Biosciences has been awarded with an Olympus BX51WI fixed stage upright microscope that offers new levels of image clarity for electrophysiological experiments. This will greatly enhance the success of his research into sexual communication by smell in mosquitoes and flies.

The two successful applicants were presented with their award certificates at a celebration lunch, held at the Royal Society of Medicine’s Chandos House, London. This lunch was attended by the academic judging panel – Dr Martin Bootman, Professor Viki Allan and Professor Geoff Pilkington, representatives from Olympus, as well as members of the press.

Dr Martin Bootman commented, ‘From the perspective of the Judging Panel, OECSMA was a huge success. It was wonderful to read so many high-quality applications from aspiring young researchers. We had a very enjoyable, but challenging task trying to pinpoint the winning applications from the ensemble of excellent proposals. In the end, I believe we identified two incredibly enthusiastic and dedicated scientists, who clearly have stellar scientific careers in front of them. I am sure the equipment that Olympus have loaned will be productively used to further enhance their cutting-edge research.

Launched earlier this year at MICROSCIENCE, the Olympus Early Career Scientist Microscopy Award was set up to help life scientists seeking to establish their careers through the two year loan of a specified item of Olympus microscopy equipment, fully supported over the loan period. By providing access to such essential instruments, this award will help early career life scientists to exceed their research goals. Furthermore, this has allowed Olympus to provide support for these scientists at a pivotal point in their careers.