Prestigious research grants awarded to university scientists

Five world-leading academics from the University of St Andrews have been awarded research funding worth a total of almost two million pounds from the prestigious Leverhulme Trust.

Dr Paolo Annibale, from the School of Physics and Astronomy, has received a Research Leadership Award totalling £990,994. Funding will support Dr Annibale's research project "Bottom-up nanoscale control of compartmentalized cellular signalling: geometry and finesse". The research will address the question of how cell geometry can control local 'function', by using a bottom-up approach encompassing a wide array of innovative physical approaches, inclusive of micro and nanotechnologies and advanced optical microscopies. This will hopefully provide a novel methodological toolbox to study key unanswered questions in cellular signaling.

Professor Peter Wahl, from the School of Physics and Astronomy, has been awarded funding totalling £363,051 over 42 months for the project "Solving superconductivity in ruthenate", starting in March 2023. The research will focus on superconductivity, the ability to transport charges with no losses, which promises new more energy efficient technologies.

Professor Wahl said: "Our research will use atomic scale imaging and spectroscopy to resolve the long-standing mystery of the nature of superconducting pairing. In superconductors, electrons, the elementary charges, pair up. These pairs can form in different ways, some of which would enable topological quantum computations, a form of quantum technology where the qubits are particularly robust. Strontium Ruthenate is a superconductor where the nature of pairing has been highly controversial for almost three decades and was a top contender as such a platform for quantum computations."

Other academics that were awarded fellowships or grants are:
Professor Nina Laurie, from the School of Geography and Sustainable Development; Professor Manfred Buck, from the School of Chemistry; Dr Eva Stueeken, from the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences.

Since its foundation in 1925, the Leverhulme Trust has provided grants and scholarships for research and education across all academic disciplines. Today, it is one of the largest all-subject providers of research funding in the UK, distributing approximately £100 million a year.

Issued as aUniversity of St Andrews news item.