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Future Leaders Fellowships for Newcastle University academics

Innovative new ways of researching epilepsy and eye disorders will be led by Newcastle University’s two new Future Leaders Fellows.

30 April 2021

A real difference

Dr Peter Taylor, a lecturer jointly based in the School of Computing and Neuroscience, and Dr Laura Young, a Reece Foundation Fellow in the Biosciences Institute and Neuroscience, were among 101 people named as Fellows by Science Minister Amanda Solloway.

Dr Taylor will use advanced computational methods to study the brains of patients with epilepsy. He will try to pinpoint the precise brain areas that are responsible for seizures and plans to use the information to help improve epilepsy surgery for patients. He hopes this research will lead to better treatments for some of the 650,000 patients with epilepsy in the UK.


“I am delighted to have been awarded this funding here in Newcastle,” he said. “My team and I hope to make a real difference to patients with this research.”

Dr Young will use an optical technique previously developed for astronomy to study the impact of eye disorders, such as macular degeneration and myopia and astigmatism, on vision.

“Our visual system undertakes sophisticated computations to process the vast amount of information entering our eyes” she explained. “Far from being passive windows on to the world, our eyes move to dynamically sample what is in front of us and extract relevant information for the task at hand.

“My fellowship will investigate the impact of eye disorders on vision, particularly how eye movements are disrupted and how this impact sight. To do this I will use an optical technique, originally developed for astronomy, that will allow me to study the living eye, and its movements, in microscopic detail. I am honoured to have been awarded a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship and to develop my research group at Newcastle.”

 

 

 

 

Image of Dr Peter Taylor