{"id":12357,"date":"2024-09-09T10:55:50","date_gmt":"2024-09-09T08:55:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/leo-foundation.org\/en\/?p=12357"},"modified":"2024-09-09T10:57:38","modified_gmt":"2024-09-09T08:57:38","slug":"british-skin-scientist-awarded-with-prestigious-leo-foundation-award-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/leo-foundation.org\/en\/2024\/09\/09\/british-skin-scientist-awarded-with-prestigious-leo-foundation-award-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"British skin scientist awarded with prestigious LEO Foundation Award 2024"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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9 September 2024<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This year\u2019s winner of the LEO Foundation Award in Region EMEA, Dr. Claire Higgins, has all the qualities of an outstanding, young skin scientist. Her research aims to achieve scarless wound healing in human skin by studying the human hair follicle and understanding how it can be used as a model for skin healing.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Claire Higgins, a Reader in the Department of Bioengineering at Imperial College London in the UK, is the winner of the LEO Foundation Award in Region EMEA. Claire Higgins receives the award \u2013 worth USD 100,000 \u2013 in support of her impressive academic achievements and her remarkable leadership within her research group and to future generations of skin scientists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is a pleasure to present this year\u2019s LEO Foundation Award in Region EMEA to Claire Higgins, a truly well-deserving recipient of the award. Claire Higgins is a distinguished and talented skin scientist. Her substantial impact on skin research extends beyond her research to the colleagues and students whom she works with and trains. Claire Higgins\u2019s clear vision for her future research can help to pave the way for new and exciting discoveries within dermatology, pointing to improve the lives of people living with skin diseases,\u201d says Anne-Marie Engel, Chief Scientific Officer at the LEO Foundation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Claire Higgins received the USD 100,000 award in person during the 53rd<\/sup> Annual ESDR Meeting<\/a> in Lisbon, Portugal on 5 September 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI am thrilled to receive the LEO Foundation Award. I find my research super exciting, and I love discovering new things about the skin, but receiving this award reinforces the belief that our work is interesting and has the potential to have several impacts on skin health,\u201d says Claire Higgins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Decoding the mechanism of hair follicles<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Claire Higgins is a remarkable talent and has demonstrated an impressive track record of providing advances to our understanding of the skin \u2013 her work has led to significant insights into hair follicle biology and its potential therapeutic applications. The overarching goal of Claire Higgins\u2019s research is to achieve scarless wound healing in human skin by preventing and reversing fibrosis which has occurred either because of injury or disease. To do so she is studying the human hair follicle to understand how it can be used as a model system for scarless healing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Claire Higgins leads Higgins \u2018Skin Regeneration\u2019 Lab at the Department of Bioengineering at Imperial College London as the Principal Investigator. Her group is diverse and currently contains two postdocs, one research assistant and six PhD students and the research projects of the group range from diagnostics for scleroderma \u2013 which leads to chronic hardening and contraction of skin and in some cases also connective tissue in other parts of the body \u2013 to evolution of hair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The LEO Foundation Award<\/a> aims to advance our understanding and treatment of skin diseases by recognizing and encouraging promising young talents, hoping to provide a boost to their future careers and by doing so, contributing to the pipeline of excellent dermatology researchers worldwide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this Q&A,<\/a> Claire Higgins talks about her academic focus and her fascination with skin.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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