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The Peter Beaconfield prizes are intended to reward young researchers who are capable of escaping from the stereotype of narrow specialisation to engage with translational medicine, and display a wider grasp of the significance and potential applicability of their research

Both the 2014 winner of the Peter Beaconfield Prize, Dr Manish Kalla, and one of two runners up, Mr Sumeth Perera, are DPAG students.

The Prize is open to postgraduate students in Physiological Sciences (registered in the department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics, Pharmacology, Pathology, Biochemistry or Experimental Psychology), who, in the 12 months preceding the closing date for applications for the prize, have applied for transfer to D.Phil. status.

Oxford’s strengths in the basic sciences and its more recent dramatic expansion in clinical science together provide new avenues for translational medicine and the opportunity for the Medical Sciences Division to establish itself as one of the best centres for such research in the world as a strategic priority. By translational medicine is meant the immediate interface between basic and clinical science, where advances in the basic sciences are examined for their possible implications for the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of disease and where clinicians challenge basic science for the answers to clinically relevant questions.

In keeping with Dr Peter Beaconsfield’s vision for the medical sciences, and the importance the Division places on the scientific/clinical interface, the prize is intended to reward young researchers who are capable of escaping from the stereotype of narrow specialisation to engage with translational medicine, and display a wider grasp of the significance and potential applicability of their research. Accordingly, essays submitted for the prize should situate the research being undertaken in the translational context. Previous prize winners have gone on to develop their research internationally.

For more info on Sumeth Perera's prize.