Dr Aniruddha Chatterjee awarded Rutherford Discovery Fellowship
13 October 2017
MWC Affiliate Investigator Dr Aniruddha Chatterjee of the University of Otago is one of only ten recipients across the country to be awarded a 2017 Rutherford Discovery Fellowship.
Administered by Royal Society Te Apārangi, Dr Chatterjee’s fellowship award is for his research into the origin and consequences of epigenetic alterations in cancer metastasis, and is worth a total of $800,000 over five years.
The overall aim of the Rutherford Discovery Fellowships is to allow early to mid-career researchers to develop a research group and programme around a specific topic. It is hoped this will ensure they establish themselves as leaders and major contributors to the future of New Zealand’s scientific community.
Dr Chatterjee is an expert in epigenetics, molecular biology and the bioinformatics analysis of next generation sequencing data.
Dr Chatterjee explains that many researchers are focused on primary cancer, when a tumour remains in its site of origin, while others are working on how such cancers are spread to other parts of the body.
“My research aims to join these important stages of cancer together to work out the whole story about why, and how, a primary cancer cell spreads in the body and becomes fatal,” says Dr Chatterjee.
“I am very thrilled to get this premier fellowship from Royal Society… I am also very grateful to my post-doctoral mentor Professor Mike Eccles, my fantastic team and students and collaborations (particularly Drs Peter Stockwell and Euan Rodger) and the Department of Pathology for the tremendous support which enabled me to walk on this road of being a laboratory head and obtain this prestigious fellowship.”