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Congratulations are in order for Louisa Zolkiewski, who completed her DPhil studies this year, on being awarded the 2022 Bruce Cattanach Prize by the Genetics Society for her DPhil thesis.

The Bruce Cattanach Prize is a 2022 addition to the Genetics Society award portfolio. The prize will be awarded annually for an outstanding PhD thesis related to the use of non-human in vivo animal models, to celebrate Dr Cattanach's tireless nurturing and encouragement of junior scientists in the use of animal models. The £500 prize money is intended to advance the recipient's science interests and career. The recipient will also be invited to present their work at a Genetics Society Scientific Meeting.

Louisa Zolkiewski is the Society's inaugural winner of the prize. Co-supervised by DPAG's Professor Clive Wilson, Louisa studied for her DPhil at MRC Harwell, where Dr Cattanach carried out his mutagenesis research for almost 30 years. She was based in Professor Roger Cox's lab investigating the underlying genetics of type II diabetes. In particular, she modelled orthologous genetic variants in vivo in mice to investigate their potential functionality associated with altered body fat distribution in humans which is a risk factor for developing complex diseases. She is now working as a senior scientist at Gentronix, a CRO based in south Manchester.

Louisa said: "I am thrilled to have been awarded the Bruce Cattanach prize for my DPhil thesis work using mouse models to investigate the function of human GWAS variants associated with fat distribution. I am extremely grateful to all the staff and researchers at MRC Harwell who trained and supported me throughout the four years of my DPhil and afforded me the opportunity to develop such a varied set of skills."

Read more on the Genetics Society website.