London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine

Three researchers from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine have been awarded prestigious five-year Fellowships by the Wellcome Trust.

Vikram Patel, Professor of International Mental Health at the School, is awarded a Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellowship, worth £3.7 million over the next five years, to build on his pioneering research into adolescent mental health. The Principal Research Fellowship is the most prestigious of the Wellcome Trust's personal awards, and provides long-term support for researchers with an established track record in research at the highest level.

Rhian Daniel, Lecturer in Medical Statistics, and Krishnan Bhaskaran, Senior Lecturer in Statistical Epidemiology, have both been awarded Wellcome Trust Sir Henry Dale Fellowships, for researchers with less than seven years post-doctoral experience. Rhian Daniel receives £650,000 over five years to research statistical methods for studying multidimensional mediators of genetic associations with chronic diseases, while Krishnan Bhaskaran was awarded £1.3 million for a project using big data to identify opportunities for cardiovascular disease prevention after cancer.

Vikram Patel was recently named in TIME Magazine's 100 list of the world's most influential people in 2015, and was last year awarded the Sarnat International Prize in Mental Health by the US Institute of Medicine. He was co-founder of Sangath, a mental health research NGO based in Goa, the founding director of the Centre for Global Mental Health, a partnership between the School and Kings Health Partners, and a co-director of the new Centre for Control of Chronic Conditions at the Public Health Foundation of India.

Professor Patel said: "It is a tremendous honour to receive this Fellowship. I am grateful to the Wellcome Trust for their long term support, which has enabled us to advance the exciting field of global mental health, and nurture a new generation of researchers working in low and middle income countries."   

Professor Peter Piot, Director of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said: "Many congratulations to Vikram, Rhian and Krishnan on these prestigious awards. As well as being an important source of funding, the Wellcome Trust provides unparalleled support for researchers at all career stages, across all areas of medicine and biomedical science. We are working closely with the Trust to achieve our mission of improving health worldwide."