Eric Reid Fund for Methodology

This fund is available to provide modest financial support for benchwork. The emphasis is on methodology, with a preference for cellular or bioanalytical work.

The Fund was endowed by a Trust (Guildford Academic Associates) co-founded by Dr Eric Reid, an Emeritus Member.

Examples of awards

Developing and applying a new technique
Checking the application of a known technique in new circumstances
Feasibility studies by new staff before they apply to a major award-granting body

How much funding is available?

£4,000 (for consumables only)
£6,000 (to cover a £2,000 stipend to a summer vacation student).

Any additional funding sought for the proposed work from other sources should be mentioned in the application.

Eligibility

To be eligible to apply:

Applicants must be a current Early Career, Full, or Emeritus member of the Biochemical Society at the application closing date. 
Funding will not be awarded in two consecutive years.
The purpose of the grant must be to set up or improve methodology, with appropriate validation. This allows trying out new ideas.
Where a short-term stipend is sought, the person must be engaged in benchwork rather than writing-up; this must be an Undergraduate student or someone that has just completed their undergraduate degree. The fund is not intended to provide or supplement students enrolled on MPhil/MRes/MSc/PhD programmes.
If the applicant is an Early Career member, a letter of support from a senior colleague or Head of Department should be provided.

Application guidelines

1. The application should include the following:

A short title to indicate what is planned.
A concise introduction to indicate existing knowledge and past work. This may usefully contain a few references.
The experimental approach planned. (This should be concise, but detailed enough so that reviewers can judge the approach. It may include remedies for difficulties that are already known.)
The sum of money requested and how it is to be spent.

2. The submission must cite any existing funding. The bid limit is £4,000 (for consumables only) or £6,000 (to cover a stipend to a summer vacation student). An applicant must cite any previous award from the Fund.

3. A short career sketch of the applicant is needed, with an indication of familiarity with the work area (a few citations for example).

4. Please include the reason for a career break (a career break is considered as any period of time where the nominee is out of work, for reasons including, but not limited to, redundancy, maternity/paternity or adoption leave, extended leave to perform a carer role, and/or as a consequence of relocation). The length of the career break is required.

5. The application should include a lay abstract of maximum 100 words outlining why the project is important and giving a brief background on their project. It is important applications are easy to understand and give the reader an understanding of what the applicant is trying to achieve.

Application deadlines

Applications for the 2023 are now open. The deadline is 21 March 2023.

Successful Applicants

Please note that successful applicants are required to:

Guarantee clearances (e.g. ethical / animal experimentation / Genetic Modification / NHTA / radioisotope use / vacation assistance insurance if applicable), preferably from the Head of Department
Submit a report and photo to accompany the report (maximum 400 words) of how the award was spent and what has been achieved. This report and photo may be used on the Biochemical Society website, blog or Biochemist Magazine.
Acknowledge support from the Biochemical Society in any publication that results.

Previous projects we have funded

In 2022, we funded Dr Simon Moore's project 'A cell-free biosensor method to detect novel antibiotics for Gram-negative bacteria'. Read about his findings:

Antibiotic discovery – a new (but old) gold rush for the 21^st century

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a significant public health threat that is projected to cause more deaths worldwide than cancer by 2050. This phenomenon occurs when bacteria develop the ability to survive exposure to antibiotics, leading to the ineffectiveness of these drugs in treating infectious diseases. In order to effectively combat AMR, it is important that we learn from the past and understand the underlying mechanisms of this phenomenon. In the 1940s to 1960s, Professor Selman Waksman (1952 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine) and his team at Rutgers University inspired a great search for antibiotics from environmental microbes, leading to the discovery of many life-saving drugs such as streptomycin. However, the depletion of the most accessible sources of these drugs, much like surface deposits in a gold rush, has made the search for new antibiotics all the more crucial. As we continue this hunt, it is also essential that we study the mechanisms of AMR in order to develop drugs that can effectively evade resistance.

The next "gold rush" of antibiotic discovery may not necessarily be a new source of these drugs, but new targets to disrupt within bacteria and other microbial infectious diseases. In the summer of 2022, the Biochemical Society supported a project to develop a new method for detecting a potential novel source of antibiotics through the Eric Reid Fund for Methodology. The project was led by Mr Guy Griffin, who worked in the laboratory of Dr Simon Moore at the University of Kent. The Moore group is focused on the field of synthetic biology for natural products and is actively working towards discovering untapped sources of antibiotics. During this time, Guy specifically developed a fluorescence methodology (see image) that allows for the real-time sensing of how energy processes – an understudied target for antibiotics – takes place inside bacteria. We anticipate Guy’s early findings could potentially open a new target for antibiotic discovery. The Moore group has since relocated to Queen Mary University of London, to continue this research line, and would like to thank the Biochemical Society for their support and training of Mr Griffin.