The British Pharmacological Society is delighted to announce the recipients of its 2026 PhD Funding.
The recipients include the four inaugural winners of the Sir David Jack PhD Scholarship. These are the first of what will be 40 PhD projects supported over the next decade, a transformative new funding programme made possible by a generous donation from the family of Sir David Jack.
The Sir David Jack PhD Scholarship complements our existing AJ Clark Studentship, and together they form the Society's PhD Funding programme, which will foster the next generation of pharmacologists and therapeutic innovators.
The recipients for 2026 are:
Sir David Jack Scholarship
Chloe Christie
“I’m honoured to receive the Sir David Jack Scholarship from the British Pharmacological Society and to be the first student at Glasgow Caledonian University to receive a BPS Funded PhD award. Through my PhD, I hope to contribute to the development of innovative therapies that could improve treatment options for patients with multiple myeloma.”
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Hiba Malik
“I am incredibly grateful to receive the Sir David Jack Scholarship. This support allows me to focus on research in cancer pharmacogenomics at the University of Liverpool, exploring how genetic variation influences responses to treatment. I hope my work will contribute to advancing more personalised, inclusive, and effective cancer therapies for patients."
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Kainan Shaw
“I am deeply honoured to have been awarded the Sir David Jack PhD Scholarship. The ability to contribute to an emerging field, specifically the development of novel modulators of the TrkB receptor, with the potential to improve quality of life for many, is especially meaningful to me. To represent the University of East Anglia and my home city of Norwich will be a privilege and a source of great pride. Coming from a modest socioeconomic background, I had not considered opportunities of this magnitude to be attainable, which makes this award particularly significant. I extend my sincere thanks to the family of Sir David Jack and the British Pharmacological Society for their generosity in providing this exceptional opportunity.”
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Benjamin Williams
“It is a phenomenal academic and personal honour to be awarded the Sir David Jack PhD Scholarship in its inaugural year. I would like to thank the Society for seeing something in me and providing the opportunity to further myself as an independent researcher in pharmacology and toxicology with this award. I am excited to be investigating the effects of active pharmaceutical ingredients in the environment using the invertebrate model, Lumbriculus variegatus, within SWIRL at Swansea University. Thank you to my supervisors, past, present and those soon to be, for the continued support and wealth of knowledge that has been provided, enabling me to be here today.”
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AJ Clark Studentship
Conor Massey
“It is a great honour to receive the prestigious AJ Clark Studentship from the British Pharmacological Society, and I am extremely grateful for their support, as this award has helped many previous recipients go on to build successful careers in pharmacology. This award provides a fantastic opportunity to pursue my PhD at the University of Glasgow, investigating the role of the succinate receptor in gastrointestinal tract motility and its potential as a therapeutic target.”
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