Dr Dino Giussani, whose research has led to exciting possibilities for bringing preventative medicine back into the womb, has won an award to keep him in the UK.
Dr Dino Giussani, whose research has led to exciting possibilities for bringing preventative medicine back into the womb, has won an award to keep him in the UK.
The Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award means that Dr Giussani will continue his research at Cambridge into how care of the unborn child can prevent complications later in life, rather than move to Australia or Canada, where he was offered research professorships.
This highly competitive 5-year prize is given to individuals of proven outstanding research ability and designed to help universities retain internationally recognised scientists. It is sometimes referred to as the ‘brain gain’ award, an antidote to the ‘brain drain’.
Dino works in Perinatal Physiology, a specialized field of Reproductive Science. His research focuses on the well-being of the unborn child and how treatment and care at the pre-natal stage can have implications for adult health.
Dino’s programmes of research have led to the discovery that sustained reductions in oxygen delivery to the unborn child (chronic fetal hypoxia) may trigger the early onset of heart disease, something that will not normally be diagnosed until much later in life.
Commenting on the award, Professor Sir Tom Blundell, a Fellow of the Royal Society and Head of the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Cambridge, explained: “It is important that we retain our best scientists in the UK. Dr Giussani will assist in keeping this country at the international forefront of research into the developmental origins of cardiovascular disease.”
Professor Bill Harris, Head of Physiology Development and Neuroscience, added: “As Dino’s head of department, I want to say how proud we are that he has received this award and how glad that, as a result, he is staying here rather than going abroad.”
“I am flattered and honoured to receive this award,” Dino Giussani said. “It is an exciting time in prenatal physiology. The concept of developmental origins for increased susceptibility to heart disease provides science with a unique opportunity to bring preventative medicine back into the womb.”
The award is jointly funded by the Wolfson Foundation and the Office of Science and Technology.
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