Sir William Wakeham Award winner announced

Dr Yu Huang has been awarded the Sir William Wakeham Award by the Department of Chemical Engineering.

The departmental award recognises early career researchers who have made a significant contribution to their research field. Winners must have no more than five years’ postdoctoral research experience and have also advanced their professional development.

There is a £2000 prize associated with the award and the winner is also invited to give a presentation at the annual postdoctoral symposium.

This year's award winner, Dr Yu Huang, is a Research Associate in the Department of Chemical Engineering with Dr Rongjun Chen.

Dr Huang is currently developing a nanomedicine technology which can deliver tissue plasminogen activator, the most widely used thrombolytic drug, to a specific blood clot site. This targeted delivery systems could enhance thrombolysis efficacy, limit required drug dose and attenuate off-target bleeding side effects.

Commenting on his award, Dr Huang said: “This award is one of my greatest achievements. It's an honor and I’m extremely grateful to be awarded. I would like to thank my supervisor and colleagues for their support and help. 

This award will certainly give me a lot of motivation in academic research and it will have a special place on my CV.” 

Highly commended 

Two researchers the department were ‘highly commended’ by the judging panel; Dr Maja Rücker and Dr Ignacio Moya. 

Dr Rücker is a Postdoctoral Researcher on the Shell Digital Rocks programme, a multi-million pound collaboration between Shell Global Solutions International BV and Imperial College London. Her work is focused on the role of molecular interactions of fluids with minerals and how these link to the macroscopic flow phenomena.

Dr Moya is a Postdoctoral Researcher working with the research groups of Dr Cleo Kontoravdi and Dr Karen Polizzi. His research involves the development of user-friendly biosensors to detect the degradation of RNA molecules.