The Academy of Medical Sciences has awarded £6.7 million to 55 early career researchers at 38 institutions across the UK, backing new research that can transform our understanding of Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, infectious diseases and chronic pain, among other pressing health challenges.
Delivered through the Academy’s flagship Springboard programme, the grants support curiosity-driven, discovery-stage research – the foundational science that underpins future treatments and interventions. The awards support researchers to take their first steps as independent group leaders, testing bold ideas with the potential to improve lives, reduce health inequalities and strengthen the UK’s long-term research base.
Now in its eleventh year, Springboard supports researchers at a critical point in their careers, when many are establishing laboratories for the first time and need the freedom to explore ambitious questions.
Having recently marked a decade of impact, the programme has now supported 471 early career researchers at 68 UK higher education institutions, expanding institutional and regional reach with researchers at the University of Lincoln and the University of Greenwich funded for the first time this year, and more than £50.5 million invested since it’s creation in 2015.
With support from the UK Government’s Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, Wellcome and the British Heart Foundation, this year’s awards span the full breadth of biomedical and health research. Together, these projects aim to help people to live healthier lives, reduce health inequalities and strengthen the UK’s ability to prevent and respond to future health emergencies.
Among this year’s Springboard awardees
At Northumbria University, Dr Rodrigo Vitorio is exploring whether non-invasive brain stimulation could help people with Parkinson’s disease overcome persistent problems with walking and balance, symptoms that often respond only partially to medication and can lead to falls, loss of confidence and reduced independence.
His project will test how transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), a safe and low-cost technique that uses a mild electrical current delivered through a head-worn device, can be optimised and tailored to individuals. Crucially, the research will assess whether people can use the technology in their own homes, focusing on the difference it could make in everyday life.
Dr Vitorio said: “I am delighted to receive the Academy’s Springboard support, which will enable me to take a crucial next step in understanding how tDCS can be optimised and personalised for people with Parkinson's. The project will identify a precise tDCS dose for each individual, potentially leading to enhanced benefits in walking and balance that truly translate to better quality of life for people with Parkinson’s. By testing whether people can use this safe, low-cost technology in their own homes, I hope to show that tDCS can be not just effective, but genuinely accessible to those who need it most”.
Dr Charlotte Hammer, based at University of Cambridge, is investigating why dangerous infectious disease outbreaks are more likely to emerge and escalate in regions affected by conflict, environmental degradation or humanitarian crises.
Drawing on detailed historical case studies, including outbreaks such as Ebola in Guinea and Nipah virus in Indonesia, Dr Hammer’s work will combine epidemiology with systems-based approaches to identify shared pathways that allow diseases to cross from animals to humans and spread rapidly.
By identifying critical “tipping points” where early action could prevent wider epidemics or pandemics, the project aims to help health systems better target surveillance and early-warning efforts.
Dr Hammer said: "Outbreaks do not happen in isolation. By looking closely at how ecological pressures, social disruption and fragile health systems interact, we can better understand why certain places become hotspots for dangerous pathogens. Having worked both as a researcher and a health emergency responder, I have seen how these dynamics shape real world risks. This award comes at a crucial stage, allowing me to establish the foundations of an integrated research programme and build the evidence needed to strengthen early detection and reduce the chances of local events turning into wider crises."
At the University of Dundee, Dr Amy Lloyd will investigate why women are around twice as likely as men to develop Alzheimer’s disease, the most common cause of dementia worldwide.
While more than 50 million people globally are affected, the biological reasons remain poorly understood. Growing evidence suggests that differences in how the immune system interacts with the brain, influenced by sex hormones such as oestrogen, play a key role. Risk rises sharply after the menopause, when oestrogen levels decline.
Dr Lloyd will use human stem cells from male and female donors to create advanced models to examine how immune responses and brain cell health differ between males and females, including under pre- and post-menopause conditions. The findings could help identify new therapeutic targets and inform future approaches to reducing risk or improving treatment for women.
Dr Lloyd said: “The Springboard award will enable me to address critical, yet underexplored questions surrounding women’s health in neurodegenerative diseases. As an early career researcher, this support is pivotal in accelerating the development of my independent research programme, providing me with the resources needed to establish and grow my lab. It will also allow me to generate high-quality data, build collaborations, and position myself as a leading expert in the neurodegeneration field. I am extremely grateful for this award and am excited for the future of my lab and its research.”
Dr Jan Vollert is expanding the PROTECT study, a large community-based study focussing on dementia, to also understand why some people develop chronic pain which, as the leading cause of disability[i], affects around one in five people worldwide.
Working from the University of Exeter, Dr Vollert will collect detailed information on pain experiences over time from up to 30,000 participants. By comparing people with and without chronic pain, Dr Vollert aims to identify the biological, psychological, and social factors that influence how pain develops and persists. In the longer term, the work could help improve early intervention, personalise care, and reduce the likelihood of pain becoming chronic.
Dr Vollert said: “This Springboard award will provide me with the chance to expand an existing cohort study run by the University of Exeter to collect complex measures on chronic pain. As the study will continue to gather data for many years, it will allow us to better understand who develops chronic pain, and why, in the community, rather than in isolated research settings. For me, this is a step change in my career trajectory, one that hopefully will lead to better pain prevention and treatment in the UK.”