Staffing News
Professor Ley Sander is appointed as the Head of the Department of Clinical & Experimental Epilepsy.
He took up the position on 1st December 2018. He will lead a highly successful comprehensive epilepsy department spanning basic science through to clinical trials and ranked number 1 in the world
Sincere thanks to Professor Matthew Walker for all his hard work as Head of Department over the past 6 years.
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Promotion success
Congratulations to the IoN staff who have been awarded a promotion in this year's promotions rounds. We now have four new professors, one new professorial research fellow, four new principal research fellows, 11 new Senior Research Fellows, one new research fellow, one new senior teaching fellow and one new clinical teaching fellow, and achieved a 100% success rate for the second year running.
New staff also continue to be recruited to the UK DRI Hub at UCL.
2018 Away Days
IoN Executive Away Day on 18 th October 2018 at the Athenaeum: combined a workshop with an interactive session with presentations concluding with a drinks reception which included the newly promoted senior academic staff.
ION Central Professional Services Teams Away Day 2018
We held our third successful annual Away Day on 19 July 2018 at Goodenough College, with interactive presentations and working groups on core behaviours and "process fixes", as well as lots of networking - and refreshments! Please see highlights on the IoN Intranet
New ION-DRI Building
Our plans for a translational neuroscience building for the UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology and the hub of the UK Dementia Research Institute entered a new phase as we began to engage with the local community about our vision to find better ways to diagnose and treat devastating neurological disorders. As part of this engagement two public exhibitions took place at the end of September to introduce the project to the local community. Please see exhibition boards for further information.
We also ran a stakeholder event on 4th December for IoN staff and PhD students, which included the public exhibition material as well as additional organisational information such as emergent building design and new operational thinking.
We have prepared a set of intranet pages which we will continue to develop as the programme progresses.
Rebranding to "UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology"
The UCL Institute of Neurology officially renamed to the UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology on 24th September 2018.
This has been communicated to UCL staff via week @ UCL and UCL staff news and to key external stakeholders.
Please be sure to reflect this new name in your email signatures, letterheads, applications, and any branded materials you produce. Further guidance on branding, stationery templates, email signatures and our logo is on the IoN intranet
Our twitter account handle remains the same @UCLIoN - don't forget to follow us and tag us in your tweets!
Annual Address, 29th October 2018
Highlights from the year included a record turnover of over £80m and £268m current active research grants, new appointments at, and formal opening of, UK DRI at UCL, renewal of Max Planck UCL Centre for Computational Psychiatry and Ageing Research, creation of Departments of Clinical and Movement Neurosciences and Neuromuscular Diseases, rebranding as UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology, and plans for new translational neuroscience building at EDH.
These achievements were complemented by many individual IoN researchers' awards and appointments, including the Brain Prize (for the second successive year), NIHR Professorship, and new Fellows of the Royal Society and British Academy.
We were delighted that Professor Fiona Watt FRS, Executive Chair of the MRC, delivered this year's annual address on "My Vision for UK Biomedical Research"
Christmas drinks
Following on from the success of the Institute’s summer drinks, we have organised Christmas Drinks on Tuesday 18th December 2018 from 5.30 pm at the Mary Ward House, 5-7 Tavistock Place, WC1H 9SN. RSVP by 14th December: s.jayasuriya@ucl.ac.uk. NB: due to venue capacity places will be allocated on a first come first served basis.
We can all be very proud of what you and your teams continue to achieve. We hope you have an enjoyable Christmas break!
Michael & Helene
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Focus - Public Engagement
Public engagement at UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology happens across many of our research groups, departments and teams.
Our researchers and educators use diverse, creative and exciting activities and techniques to communicate their ideas to all audiences. Our case studies demonstrate just a selection of the fantastic engagement happening across the Institute.
Recent activities include:
Read on to find out more and learn how you can get involved.
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We are delighted to announce two new UCL well-being champions for IoN : Elizabeth Halton and Jacky Bauer.
Please see the Wellbeing pages on the IoN intranet for links to useful resources and local activities
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Newly awarded grants over £500k
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Cantervale Ltd
Professor Sarah Tabrizi (Department of Neurodegenerative Disease) awarded a grant of £621,492 for the Huntington’s Disease Centre from 31 May 2018 over 30 months.
CHDI Foundation Inc
Professor Sarah Tabrizi (Department of Neurodegenerative Disease) has been awarded £576,640 over 24 months from 1st July 2018 for a project entitled ‘Mechanism of the DNA Damage Response in Huntington’s Disease Pathogenesis’.
Max Planck Society
Professor Ray Dolan (Department of Imaging Neuroscience and Max Planck UCL Centre for Computational Psychiatry and Ageing) has been awarded 625,000 Euros by the Max Planck Society, an extension of the term of the Max Planck UCL Centre for Computational Psychiatry and Ageing Research for a further 60 months from 1 April 2019.
MRC
Dr Rickie Patani (Department of Neuromuscular Diseases) has been awarded an MRC Senior Clinical Fellowship in ALS research.
Dr Gabriele Lignani (Epilepsy Research UK senior fellow, DCEE) has been awarded the MRC New Investigator Award to develop a new CRISPR-based therapy for Dravet Syndrome
Dr James Sleigh (Department of Neuromuscular Diseases) has been awarded an MRC Career Development Award from 1st Feb 2019 over 5 years, for a project entitled “Regulation of axonal transport by neurotrophic factors in health and disease.”
UK DRI Ltd
Dr Soyon Hong (UK DRI Ltd) awarded a grant of £1,787,633 as the DRI Core Award to the Hub at UCL from 1st September 2018 for 60 months.
Professor Tom Bartels (UK DRI Ltd) awarded a grant of £895,794 as the DRI Core Award to the Hub at UCL from 1st September 2018 for 36 months.
Dr Marc Busche (UK DRI Ltd) awarded a grant of £1,607,177 as the DRI Core Award to the Hub at UCL from 1st September 2018 for 60 months
Wellcome Trust
Professor Dimitri Kullmann (Department of Clinical & Experimental Epilepsy) has been awarded a Wellcome Trust Investigator Award for a project on Synaptic Neurology, a grant of up to £1,600,865 over 60 months from 1st October 2018.
Professor Dmitri Rusakov (Department of Clinical & Experimental Epilepsy) has been awarded £2,737,900, a renewal of his Principal Research Fellowship for a further 60 months, to conduct research on the ‘Principles of synapse-astrocyte networking in the brain’ from 1st October 2018.
Funding opportunities
RESEARCHconnect
Thousands of funding opportunities for the UK research community can be found through UCL's subscription to RESEARCHconnect. To access the site you'll need to register - please email Jacob Sweiry (j.sweiry@ucl.ac.uk) to request access.
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Congratulations!
We’re pleased to announce the following recent prizes and awards:
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New Starters
Welcome to the following staff who joined ION in the past 3 months:
Mr Yoshiteru Shimoda, Dr Steven Poulter, Mrs Hanaa El Hachami, Dr Steven Devenish, Dr Sara Zagaglia, Dr Carolina Atuesta Ferreira, Dr Shiwen Koay, Dr Jonathan Best, Dr Lorenz Deserno, Dr Matthew Nour, Miss Madeleine Scott, Mr Fraser Aitken, Miss Nicola Smith, Mr Cameron Cook, Mr Sean Cavanagh, Miss Alexandra Jagla, Mr Aaron Bradshaw, Mr Timothy Muller, Miss Sarah Frew, Miss Alexandra Van Ingelgom, Miss Isabella Kaczmarczyk, Miss Perlina Desai, Mr Nick Burt, Dr Stacy Steinberg, Miss Alice Winters, Miss Skye Stuart, Mr Jai Bhagat, Dr Ioana Butnaru, Dr Dawn Lau, Miss Leela Phadke, Dr Zhongo Chen, Mr Faidon Neroutsos, Miss Hannah Carr, Mr Samuel Jones, Dr Yara Hassan, Dr Angeliki Zarkali, Ms Stephanie Deriziotis, Dr Aitana Sogorb-Esteve, Miss Raquel Fonseca, Dr Jeremy Johnson, Dr Rosanna Tortelli, Mr Manuel Guelfi, Mr Joseph Hamilton, Dr Matthew Harris, Dr Jenny Lange, Dr Thomas Williams, Dr Arman Eshaghi, Miss Miriam Mugabo, Dr Rachel Brown, Ms Raquel Coelho Real, Dr Soyon Hong, Dr Giovanna Lalli, Dr Tim Bartels, Dr Marc Busche
Academic retirements: Professor Marwan Hariz, Professor Brian Day, Professor Philip Patsalos, Professor Marjan Jahanshahi
We wish our colleagues who have recently left IoN all the very best for the future.
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Recent ION events
Queen Square Inaugural Lectures
Tuesday 27 November 2018
- Professor Alex Leff (Professor of Cognitive Neurology) “Bad Language”
- Professor Nick Ward (Professor of Clinical Neurology and Neurorehabilitation) “Rehabilitation, Recovery, Repair – 3 R’s of life after stroke”
Monday 10th December 2018
- Professor Adrian Isaacs (Professor of Neurodegenerative Disease) My journey of discovery in frontotemporal dementia and motor neuron disease
- Professor Sebastian Crutch (Professor of Neuropsychology) Posterior cortical atrophy: personal, scientific and artistic perspectives on a clinical syndrome
Inaugural lecture news items
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The ICM/ION Conference, 24-26th October 2018, Paris
The ICM/ION Conference is a student led conference organised in partnership between London & Paris. It was initiated with the aim to bring together young neuroscientists from the Institute of the Brain and Spinal Cord (Institut du Cerveau et de la Moelle Epiniere – ICM, Paris) and UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology to promote the creation of new research collaborations and the strengthening of existing links. In March 2018 a delegation of 50 early career researchers from ICM visited Queen Square for the first meeting of minds, which was a great success.
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The return visit to Paris this year saw more than 100 participants (PhD, Post-Docs and PIs) presenting the wide range of the research done in both institutes through 3 days of talks, posters and workshops. This year also included an extra-scientific panel session, proposed by Dr. Marie-Claude Potier (ICM) and Dr. Steve Fleming (IoN) on the theme of ‘Growing up in Science: Gender in Science’.
Please see ION News item for further information, including details of the organising team.
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Upcoming ION events
Christmas drinks
Following on from the success of the Institute’s summer drinks, we have organised Christmas Drinks on Tuesday 18th December 2018 from 5.30 pm at the Mary Ward House, 5-7 Tavistock Place, WC1H 9SN. RSVP by 14th December: s.jayasuriya@ucl.ac.uk. NB: due to venue capacity places will be allocated on a first come first served basis.
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