AMI member Christopher Stewart named as finalist in 2025 UK Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists

Applied Microbiology International member Dr Christopher Stewart of Newcastle University has been named as a finalist in the eighth Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists in the UK.

The Blavatnik Family Foundation and The New York Academy of Sciences have just announced the finalists for the Awards, which recognise scientific advances by UK researchers across Life Sciences, Chemical Sciences, and Physical Sciences & Engineering.

On Wednesday, 4 March, Professor Shitij Kapur, FMedSci, Vice-Chancellor & President, King’s College London, will announce the three 2025 Laureates at a gala dinner and awards ceremony. The three Laureates will each receive an unrestricted award of £100,000 (US$126,000). The remaining six Finalists will each receive £30,000 (US$37,800).

Microbiology finalist

Dr Stewart - the only microbiologist among the finalists - has developed novel microbiome-based approaches to prevent necrotising enterocolitis (NEC), the leading cause of death in preterm infants around the world.

His work revealed the role of human breast milk in shaping the gut microbiome in premature infants by providing abundant sugars that serve as an energy source for beneficial bacterial species. He is currently Professor of Human Microbiome Research at Newcastle University.

An AMI member, Dr Stewart is the 2023 winner of AMI’s WH Pierce Prize for microbiology and last year hosted an AMI webinar, Deciphering the Microbiome: Research and Applications in Early Human Development, which brought together leading researchers to unravel the complexities of the human microbiome’s role in early development.

Gut microbiome

After winning the WH Pierce Prize, he told AMI how the primary goal of his research programme is to define how breastmilk bioactive components and the gut microbiome contribute to short- and long-term health in preterm infants.

This work relies on the Great North Neonatal Biobank - established by Dr Janet Berrington, it is the world’s largest neonatal biobank. 

“This has allowed my research group to study the abnormal bacterial colonisation in preterm infants and its association with sepsis and necrotising enterocolitis (NEC), an inflammatory mediated bowel disease representing the leading cause of death in preterm infants,” Dr Stewart said. 

Breastmilk impact

“Mothers’ own milk (MOM) is the most protective factor against NEC in preterm infants and I have a longstanding interest in MOM and how this directly and indirectly (i.e., through modulation of the infant gut microbiome) impacts infant outcomes. 

“For example, with collaborators around the world, my group has extensively studied MOM bioactive components such as human milk oligosaccharides (HMO) and secretory immunoglobulin A (sIgA). Such work has shown important differences in MOM received by infants who go on to develop NEC and we are actively studying the potential mechanisms in my lab. 

“At the core of this is using a range of microbiology techniques, alongside a novel intestinal organoid co-culture system that allows diet-microbe-host interaction to be investigated.”

Gut microbiome

Dr Stewart said his research programme is also expanding into understanding how the gut microbiome can impact treatment response in adult inflammatory bowel disease and colorectal cancer. 

“In addition, I have a long-standing passion to expand my research to underprivileged and understudied low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), which currently contribute a tiny fraction of the samples used in microbiome studies,” he said. 

“The overarching ambition through this multi-disciplinary, multi-geographical approach is to allow my translational research to move from ‘bedside to bench, and back again’.”

Nine finalists

The finalists of Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists in the UK were selected by an independent jury of expert scientists from a pool of 94 nominees representing 45 academic and research institutions across the UK.

This is the first year the Blavatnik Awards Finalists include researchers from Newcastle University, the University of Liverpool, and the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine.

They include toxinologist Nicholas R. Casewell, of Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine; and neuroscientist Andrew M. Saxe, of University College London.

Chemical sciences finalists include organic chemist Liam T. Ball, of University of Nottingham; physical chemist Brianna R. Heazlewood, of University of Liverpool; and chemical biologist Chunxiao Song, of University of Oxford.

The Physical Sciences & Engineering finalists are biogeochemist Benjamin J.W. Mills, of University of Leeds; theoretical physicist Hannah Price, of University of Birmingham; and mathematician Filip Rindler, of The University of Warwick.

Backdrop to awards

The Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists are the largest unrestricted prizes available to UK scientists aged 42 or younger. Since launching in 2017, UK scientists honoured by the Blavatnik Awards have received more than £3 million (US $3.8 million) in prize money.  Internationally recognised by the scientific community, the Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists are instrumental in expanding the engagement and recognition of young scientists and providing the support and encouragement needed to drive scientific innovation for the next generation.

The Blavatnik Awards in the UK sit alongside their global counterparts, the Blavatnik National Awards and the Blavatnik Regional Awards in the United States, and the Blavatnik Awards in Israel, all of which honour and support exceptional early-career scientists. By the close of 2025, the Blavatnik Awards will have awarded prizes totalling nearly $20 million.

Promising scientists

“We created the Blavatnik Awards to support the creative and novel research of promising scientists early in their careers, recognising their achievements and accelerating the trajectories of beneficial scientific breakthroughs and innovations,” said Sir Leonard Blavatnik, Founder of Access Industries and Head of the Blavatnik Family Foundation.

Professor Nicholas B. Dirks, President and CEO of The New York Academy of Sciences and Chair of the Awards’ Scientific Advisory Council, noted, “I wish these nine Finalists a hearty congratulations and best of luck. They demonstrate great promise and potential through their bold, scientific research. Their work lays the foundation for treatments and discoveries that can help people, our planet, and the pursuit of science itself.”

Members of the public interested in learning more about the research of this year’s honourees may register to attend a free public symposium entitled “Imagining the Impossible: UK Scientists Changing Our World,” at the Royal Academy of Medicine on 5 March 2025 from 11:00 to 16:00 GMT.

To attend this free public symposium, register HERE.