Meet the judges of the 2021 Future Science Future Star Award

We are excited to announce our judging panel for the 2021 Future Science Future Star Award.

Ian A Blair – University of Pennsylvania (USA), Future Science OA Senior Editor

Ian Blair received his PhD in Organic Chemistry in 1971 from Imperial College of Science and Technology (London, UK) under the mentorship of the 1969 Nobel Laureate, Sir Derek H.R. Barton. He was appointed as the A.N. Richards Professor of Pharmacology at University of Pennsylvania in 1997 and Director of a new Center for Cancer Pharmacology. In 2002, Blair was appointed as Vice-Chair of the Department of Systems Pharmacology and Translational Therapeutics.

In 2014, he became Director of the NIEHS-funded Penn Superfund Research and Training Program Center. Blair is an expert in the use of mass spectrometric methods for the structural elucidation and quantification of endogenous biomolecules. His current research is involved with the development of biomarkers in order to establish genetic/phenotype correlations and to assess the interaction between genes and exposure to environmental chemicals. He is particularly interested in the regulation of cellular oxidative stress and how this underpins mechanisms involved in carcinogenesis, cardiovascular disease, and neurodegeneration. Blair discovered electron capture atmospheric pressure chemical ionization, a technique that makes it possible to conduct high sensitivity quantitative analyses of chiral biomolecules.

He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists. He received the 2011 Eastern Analytical Award for Outstanding Achievements in Mass Spectrometry. Blair is on the editorial boards of Future Science OA, Molecular and Cellular Proteomics, Journal of Lipid Research and Chemical Research in Toxicology. He has published 329-refereed manuscripts – they have been cited 13,970 times – and he has an h-index of 59.

Ananda Bandyopadhyay – Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (WA, USA)

Ananda Bandyopadhyay is a Medical Epidemiologist and Public Health Professional with a career interest in facilitating disease eradication and elimination. Ananda is currently employed as a Senior Program Officer for Polio with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and is responsible for the management of a complex vaccine research portfolio to support data generation for “polio endgame” policy formulation.

In his current role, Bandyopadhyay is leveraging his experience in public health and epidemiology to drive new research studies for polio vaccines and environmental surveillance across four continents.

Since gaining his medical degree from Calcutta National Medical College (India) in 2004, he has worked in key positions at various organizations such as the World Health Organization/National Polio Surveillance Project (India), Harvard School of Public Health (MA, USA) and the State Department of Health at Rhode Island (USA).

Andy Tay Kah Ping – National University of Singapore, FSFS Award 2020 winner

Andy graduated with a PhD from the University of California, Los Angeles (CA, USA) in 2017. His thesis, which was focused on the use of magnetic biomaterials for chronic pain modulation, won the Springer Theses Prize. Following this, Andy headed to Stanford University (CA, USA) for postdoctoral training where he developed nano-structured devices for immune-cell engineering. Andy’s research paper was chosen as the 2019 Most Influential Paper in the journal Advanced Therapeutics and he was then awarded the prestigious Brunel Fellowship for a short research stint in Imperial College London (UK). Andy is launching a lab at the National University of Singapore this year.

Andy hopes that through his science communication efforts he can continue to represent the under-served communities and make science a more diverse and inclusive community.

Catherine Martel – Université de Montréal, Canada

Catherine obtained her PhD from the Université de Montréal, and pursued a postdoctoral fellowship first at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, then at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri, and obtained the Junior Investigator Award for Women from the Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosisand Vascular Biology (ATVB) council of the American Heart Association. Her postdoctoral work is certainly groundbreaking and brings forward new considerations in the field: she discovered that the lymphatic vessel route, the network that runs in parallel with the blood vessels, is critical for removing cholesterol from multiple tissues, including the aortic wall. In 2013, Martel joined the ATVB’s Early Career Committee in 2013, eager to bring a Canadian perspective to the group and get involved in council activities.

Since 2014, Martel has been an Assistant professor at the Department of Medicine at the Université de Montréal, and a research scientist at the Montreal Heart Institute. Her research program now focuses on characterizing the physiopathologic role of the lymphatics in the initiation, progression and regression of atherosclerosis. Basic and translational research will allow her team to identify the causes of lymphatic dysfunction, and eventually target potential therapeutic strategies aiming at improving lymphatic function at the different levels of the atherothrombotic disease. You can follow Catherine’s lab at @LaboMartel_ICM.

Nominations are now closed for the award and the judging is underway.