Congratulations to Professor Ewa Paluch (UCL/MRC Laboratory for Cell and Molecular Biology), who has been awarded one of this year's Philip Leverhulme Prizes in Biological Sciences for her contributions to cell biophysics.
The award recognises early career researchers, whose work has already had significant impact, and whose future research career is exceptionally promising.
Ewa joined LMCB/UCL from the Max Planck Institute CBG in Dresden in January 2013 as Professor of Cell Biophysics. Her laboratory investigates the principles underlying cellular morphogenesis. Since cell shape is ultimately defined by cellular mechanical properties and by the cell's physical interactions with its environment, biophysical approaches are essential to understand cell shape control. The lab combines cell biology, biophysics and quantitative imaging, and works in close collaboration with theoretical physicists, to investigate the regulation of the cellular actin cortex, and the function of cortical mechanics in cell shape regulation. The lab has made significant contributions to understand how cortex mechanics is regulated and how the cortex drives migration and division.
Ewa plans to use the prize money to explore new directions in the investigation of the control and evolution of cellular shape as well as the physical changes underpinning stem cell differentiation.
For more information on Ewa and her research group, visit the Paluch Lab Website.
Find out more about the Leverhulme Trust at their website.