Two Fellowships for James
We are delighted to share that James Allison has been awarded two prestigious fellowships.
15 June 2021
The 4ward North Clinical PhD Academy
The institutions have come together to set up the ‘The 4ward North Clinical PhD Academy’ to raise the quality of clinical academic research training in northern England. The Wellcome Trust has awarded £5 million over five years to allow these universities to combine their strengths in biomedical and health research.
The Academy also works in collaboration with the Francis Crick Institute (FCI) in London to optimise training opportunities. There is enormous competition for each of these Fellowships, with only one successful application in the field of Dentistry previously recorded.
Faculty of Dental Surgery Research Fellowship
James’ second fellowship is the Faculty of Dental Surgery Research Fellowship from the Royal College of Surgeons of England. This fellowship allows clinical trainees to obtain research training by covering salary, on-costs and research consumables.
The two fellowships will allow James to undertake a PhD looking at the dispersion of viruses and other pathogens in the aerosols produced during healthcare procedures, using dentistry as a model to do so. James will be based at Newcastle University, and will work with his supervisors and collaborators in the Universities of Leeds, Sheffield, and Northumbria, as well as the UK's national measurement institute—the National Physical Laboratory. This work aims to understand how infection might be transmitted in tiny water droplets during procedures like drilling and scaling teeth, and how this can be controlled in the future.
In the last 18 months, as well as securing two fellowships, James has also secured nationally competitive grants and c. £40k commercial funding. He has published several papers leading to a change in national guidance. He has also been involved in collaborative research which has contributed to restarting 30,000 dental student patient episodes per annum!