After receiving many excellent applications, the winner of the 2022 Simon Newell award is Dr Seilesh Kadambari.
Prior to taking up his recent consultant role at Great Ormond Street Hospital, Dr Seilesh Kadambari was formally a Clinical Lecturer and honorary specialty registrar in paediatric infectious diseases at Oxford University and the Children’s Hospital, Oxford.
Whilst undergoing his training, Dr Kadambari spent three years working in the Paediatric Infectious Diseases Research Group at St George’s London, where he developed a series of collaborative surveillance studies with Public Health England in order to characterise and define the burden viral meningitis in infants and children.
Dr Kadambari has also spent a year working within the Department of Virology, based at the Royal Free Hospital where he broadened his knowledge and understanding of the molecular epidemiology of treatment targets for congenital CMV.
Professor Paul Dimitri, Vice President for Science and Research said:
Dr Kadambari has developed a strong and impressive track record in immunology and infectious diseases and has published over 40 studies in the field of neonatal infection. In 2019 he received the European Society of Paediatric Infectious Diseases Young Investigator Award for his academic achievements. He has led a multidisciplinary team to publish the first guidelines to treat congenital and postnatal CMV.
These guidelines have been adopted by neonatal units across the UK and Europe. In 2020,
Dr. Kadambari led the largest published epidemiological study of congenital infection with an aim to inform future vaccine development. This and other outputs from his work have been adopted at a national and international level to improve the care of babies and children.
We spoke to Seilesh about his research, the award and plans for the future.
What does it mean to you to win this award?
It is a huge privilege to win the Simon Newell award and also to follow in the footsteps of some of my role models who also won this prestigious award in previous years.
I think the award recognises the importance of doing research in the field of congenital infections and that provides me with an enormous amount of motivation and pride.
What are your plans for your research career?
I am planning on leading a programme of studies that will improve the management of congenital CMV. This will involve conducting a series of epidemiological studies to better understand the burden of congenital CMV and potentially inform screening strategies and vaccine development.
What is your advice for aspiring researchers?
Enjoy it. Doing research can be hard work and it may take time to see any tangible output. Do research in areas that you find rewarding, drives your curiosity and work with people who inspire you and make the job fun.
Mentor. Find a supervisor that has an established track record of supervising trainees, can help navigate you through training/open new doors and provide you with mentorship. I have been incredibly fortunate to work for some inspirational mentors and would highly recommend finding someone who can best guide you from an early stage.
Persevere. Failure is a common component of any research career. Learn from every rejection in order to improve your research question and keep pushing on!
The Simon Newell Award will be running again for 2023. Keep an eye out for more information.