Dr Kristen Barratt has been awarded The Verne Chapman Young Scientist Award at The Allied Genetics Conference (TAGC).

 

Dr Barratt received an award of $500USD and a two-year appointment as the early career academic (ECA) representative on the executive of the International Mammalian Genome Society (IGMS).

 

The IGMS runs an ECA symposium and the best presentations from this meeting are selected for TAGC. Dr Barratt’s talk was judged the best talk of the ECA symposium, and so she was chosen to present her work at TAGC.

 

TAGC is organised by the Genetics Society of America every four years and brings together multiple communities of geneticists spanning many model organisms as well as human, plant and agricultural genetics.

 

But, this year the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted these plans, so TAGC and the IGMS decided to do what they could on-line.

 

Whilst Dr Barratt was awarded a travel grant to attend the meeting in person, she instead stayed at home and presented her talk in the early hours of the morning via Zoom.

 

“I presented work done in our laboratory about how genetic changes in mouse embryos alter heart formation, as part of an ongoing project in our lab about congenital heart defects.” said Dr Barratt. 

 

“This is the is the culmination of work from seven different lab members, and our next steps are to finish off our final data collection and finally get this project published.”

 

The Verne Chapman Young Scientist Award has been established by the International Mammalian Genome Society, to honour the memory of Professor Verne M. Chapman.

 

Professor Chapman played a unique role in the field of mouse genetics, fostering interactions between investigators in the international arena, and nurturing and developing the careers of young scientists.

 

Additional to her award, Dr Barratt will have all expenses paid for her to attend the next two international meetings, so despite having to stay home this year, she will be able to attend the meeting in the future.

 

Dr Barratt is a Postdoctoral Fellow in The Arkell Group - Early Mammalian Development at JCSMR.