Congratulations to Dr Andrew Montgomery, a recent Drug Discovery Initiative Postdoctoral Fellow to join the Kassiou Medicinal Chemistry and Drug Discovery group, who was awarded the 2021 Drug Discovery Institute’s (DDI) Early Career Award.

The DDI ECR Awards seek to acknowledge and reward the research achievements of our HDR and ECR members across all areas of drug discovery. Several categories have been set up this year to provide equal opportunity, regardless of career stage. Andrew was successful in the ECR-1: 0-3 years post-PhD category

The DDI also held an independent seed funding for early- to mid-career researchers at the University working in the drug discovery space. This funding program drew 17 applications from which 7 outstanding projects were funded - 2 led by researchers 0-3 years postPhD (ECR-1), and 5 led by researchers 3-10 years post-PhD (ECR-2). Andrew was successful in the ECR-1 category for the project titled "Hit-to-lead optimisation of small molecules that reduce toxic TDP43 inclusions in cellular models of frontotemporal dementia"