Xin Zhou awarded Oxford-Bristol Myers Squibb Fellowship

Congratulations to Xin Zhou, who has been awarded one of five Oxford-Bristol Myers Squibb fellowships.

The fellowships (representing an investment of £3M) will support postdoctoral researchers and clinicians across five departments within the Medical Sciences Division and the Mathematical, Physical and Life Sciences Division, providing an opportunity for them to gain exposure to the field of commercial drug discovery and development.

Now in its 6th year, the Oxford-BMS Fellowship Programme stimulates new scientific discovery and translation and facilitate skills and people transfer between researchers at Oxford and Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS). Oxford’s relationship with BMS continues to grow year on year, with the new 2020 Fellowships taking the total of Oxford-BMS Fellows to 28.

Bristol Myers Squibb focus on the discovery, development and commercialisation of innovative therapies for patients with cancer, immune-inflammatory and other unmet medical needs.

Fellows carry out a three-year postdoctoral research project and have a high level of support available through the direction and mentorship of BMS project leads. Both BMS and the University draw value from the opportunity to facilitate skills transfer between researchers in academia and industry and to stimulate new scientific discovery and translation. The Fellows also have opportunities to carry out research and utilise facilities at BMS labs in the US and Spain, in addition to accessing unique training opportunities.

Xin Zhou will carry out her project under the supervision of Professor Blanca Rodriguez in the Department of Computer Science. Professor Rodriguez (Principal Investigator) comments, ‘We are very excited about this new Oxford-BMS collaboration on modelling and simulation for target identification and evaluation in heart failure.’

Xin Zhou says, ‘The Oxford-BMS fellowship will be a great opportunity for me to dive deeper into the scientific research of heart failure and to know more about target identification in drug development at BMS through working closely with my mentors.’