Frances Platt receives Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award

Merton Supernumerary Fellow Professor Frances Platt has been appointed as a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award holder for her work on the understanding and treating of lysosomal disorders.

The lysosome is the recycling centre of the cell — when dysfunctional it causes severe human disease. Lysosomal storage diseases, a group of inherited metabolic diseases occur at a frequency of 1 in 5,000 people. They typically present in infancy or childhood but adult-onset variants also occur. Caused by inherited mutations in genes, their symptoms can include developmental delay, movement disorders, seizures, dementia, deafness and blindness.

Wolfson Research Merit Awards are jointly funded by the Wolfson Foundation and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, and aim to provide universities with additional support to enable them to attract science talent from overseas and retain respected UK scientists of outstanding achievement and potential. The awards are worth between £10,000 and £30,000 a year, as a salary enhancement.