A PhD student at a Scottish university has won a prestigious award naming her as one of the best young scientists in her field.
Holly Keir, 27, who is working on her PhD at the University of Dundee, received the British Thoracic Society’s Early Career Investigator Award at the organisations annual winter meeting.
The award came after the student gave a presentation on her research into bronchiectasis, a severe inflammatory lung condition.
Keir led studies which showed for the first time that an excessive type of immune response, called neutrophil extracellular trap formation (NETs) was present in bronchiectasis – and this is linked to worsening symptoms.
READ MORE: Here are the latest Covid numbers in Scotland ahead of 'data-driven' lockdown easing
She also demonstrated how antibiotic treatment can reduce NET levels in lungs and lead to improved outcomes.
Keir has spent the past year working on potential treatments for Covid-19. Her work on NETs was a key factor in setting up STOP-COVID, a UK-wide clinical trial of a drug it is hoped can prevent the worst effects of the disease.
The student co-led the lab team examining how the drug Brensocatib affects immune systems in patients with the virus.
“I am absolutely delighted to have won this award and I can’t really believe it, to be honest,” she said.
“It is so rewarding to have the work you give so much to recognised in this way.”
She went on: “The immune system normally tries to clear infections such as viruses or bacteria from the lungs without damaging the lung tissue around them. Our research has shown how this goes wrong in lung conditions. When this happens, white blood cells called neutrophils explode, forming NETs that damage the lungs.”
Previous Brensocatib trials have shown that its anti-inflammatory properties have the potential to treat the cycle of inflammation, infection and damage in lung disease patients.
“Showing how the immune system goes wrong is the key to unlocking new treatments, both for chronic lung conditions and perhaps also for Covid-19,” Keir continued. “It has been intense working on STOP-COVID as well as carrying out my PhD work, but it has been an invaluable experience professionally and I am glad to have been able to play some part in the battle against Covid.”
Keir graduated from Dundee in 2016 with a degree in biological sciences before going on to work as a technician. She then started a PhD the following year in the lab of Professor James Chalmers, one of the UK’s leading lung experts.
The early career investigator award she has received is highly competitive, and is awarded in recognition of the very best basic, translational or clinical research performed in the UK respiratory community by an early career researcher.
The results of Keir’s study have now been published in the leading medical journal The Lancet Respiratory Medicine.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here