{"id":548,"date":"2025-08-15T16:12:58","date_gmt":"2025-08-15T04:12:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/omsrs\/?p=548"},"modified":"2025-08-15T16:12:58","modified_gmt":"2025-08-15T04:12:58","slug":"phd-student-awards-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/omsrs\/phd-student-awards-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"PhD Student Awards 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"

The <\/span>275th Scientific Meeting of OMSRS<\/span><\/b>, the <\/span>2025 PhD Student Meeting<\/span><\/b>, was held on the 13th August 2025. The event was generously sponsored by the Otago Medical Research Foundation (OMRF) and Leica Biosystems. 10 PhD students had their abstracts accepted by the Editorial Panel and presented on the night. The presenters were:<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Joan Chan<\/span><\/i><\/b>, Department of Physiology<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Courtney Westlake<\/span><\/i><\/b>, Department of Anatomy<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Florence de Roo<\/span><\/i><\/b>, Department of Pathology<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Meghan Mulligan<\/span><\/i><\/b>, Department of Biochemistry<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Angela Yee<\/span><\/i><\/b>, Department of Pathology<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Simon Guan<\/span><\/i><\/b>, Department of Oral Diagnostic & Surgical Sciences<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Tyla Alexander<\/span><\/i><\/b>, Department of Pharmacology & Toxicoloty<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Sayan Sharma<\/span><\/i><\/b>, Department of Pathology<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Elijah Atta Manu<\/span><\/i><\/b>, Department of Physiology<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Lijo Varghese<\/span><\/i><\/b>, Department of Physiology<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
PhD student presenters pictured with Prof Julia Horsfield (Dean of the School of Biomedical Sciences \u2013 second from right) and Melissa Tapp (Leica Biosystems \u2013 first on right)\u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The judges for the meeting were <\/span>Prof Greg Anderson<\/span><\/b> (Department of Anatomy), <\/span>Dr Sankalita Ray<\/span><\/b> (Department of Biochemistry) and <\/span>Dr Brendon Roxburgh<\/span><\/b> (School of Physical Education, Sport and Exercise Science). The judges were highly impressed by the standard of presentations.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The winner was <\/span>Lijo Varghese<\/span><\/b> from the Department of Physiology. (Abstract: <\/span>LN Varghese, <\/span>P Sheard, D Schwenke, R Katare. Cross-species analysis of age- and sex-specific dysregulation of cardiac-enriched microRNAs and their therapeutic restoration using lipid nanoparticles). Lijo received $500 in prize money (sponsored by OMRF).<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Winner Lijo Varghese pictured with Prof Julia Horsfield<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The runner-up was <\/span>Tyla Alexander<\/span><\/b> from the Department of Pharmacology & Toxicology. (Abstract: <\/span>TI Alexander, <\/span>ML Garelja, DL Hay. A cellular framework for understanding migraine drugs: antagonism of four signalling pathways by rimegepant at the calcitonin gene-related peptide receptor<\/span>). Tyla received $250 (sponsored by Leica Biosystems).<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Runner-up Tyla Alexander pictured with Melissa Tapp from Leica Biosystems<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Overall, the night was a wonderful celebration showcasing the achievements of our amazing PhD Students undertaking health-related research at the University of Otago. Congratulations to Lijo and Tyla, and to all the speakers for their outstanding presentations.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Kindly sponsored by:<\/span> \"\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The 275th Scientific Meeting of OMSRS, the 2025 PhD Student Meeting, was held on the 13th August 2025. The event was generously sponsored by the Otago Medical Research Foundation (OMRF) and Leica Biosystems. 10 PhD students had their abstracts accepted by the Editorial Panel and presented on the night. The presenters were:\u00a0 Joan Chan, Department […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45025,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[84872],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-results"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/omsrs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/omsrs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/omsrs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/omsrs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/45025"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/omsrs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=548"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/omsrs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/omsrs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/omsrs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/omsrs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}