The fellowship - supported by the SSNAP 'Support for the Sick Newborn and their Parents' Charity - is awarded to outstanding postdoctoral scientists, looking to establish their own independent research career.
Dr Eugene Duff will be working alongside Professor Rebeccah Slater, who will provide mentorship and support.
I'm delighted to be awarded the SSNAP Fellowship in Paediatric Neuroscience, which gives me the opportunity to work at one of the most important interfaces of neuroscience and clinical practice, where our methods and knowledge can potentially transform care for individuals at the most fragile stages of life. I'm very much looking forward to working with Prof Rebeccah Slater, SSNAP, and all the staff in the PIPA group and JR women's centre - Dr Eugene Duff
Eugene studied Mathematics and Neuroscience at the University of Melbourne, with Doctoral research focusing on novel methods for analysing functional MRI studies of the human brain in health and disease. He continued his work at the FMRIB group, where he worked developing MRI techniques for Drug Discovery, focusing on analgesics, and contributing to the widely used MRI research software package, FSL.
Recently, he has been working on the Developing Human Connectome Project, the world's largest MR-imaging study of perinatal brain development, which aims to build a map of the developing connectivity of the human brain using a variety of MRI measures in utereo and post-birth.
In his SSNAP Fellowship Dr Duff aims to translate his expertise in human neuroimaging methods to further the PIPA group's striving to understand and measure pain in newborns, developing imaging methods that accommodate the extraordinary changes that occur in early life, and facilitate the translation of neuroscience tools and insights into techniques appropriate for vital clinical trials.