The Ling Felce Award

THE LING FELCE AWARD

The Ling Felce Award supports CAMS Oxford Institute (COI) researchers wishing to undertake bioinformatics training through the British Society for Immunology (BSI). Successful applicants will receive funding for the full course fees and one year membership to BSI. 

Bioinformatics is becoming increasingly essential across the life sciences. As omic technologies become more widely used to complement wet-lab research in immunology, understanding how to design, analyse and interpret these datasets is now a valuable skill for researchers at every stage of their career.

BSI Bioinformatics Courses

BSI offer a comprehensive and highly rated training programme in collaboration with John Cole (Glasgow Bioinformatics Core), designed to equip wet-lab immunologists, clinical scientists and other life scientists with the skills and confidence to carry out their own bioinformatic data analysis.

Courses are designed specifically for lab-based scientists who:

• Are planning or carrying out sequencing, mass-spec or spatial omics experiments
• Want to learn bioinformatics and R to support their research or career development
• Need to better understand omics data in the scientific literature
• Are looking for practical skills and confidence applying bioinformatics to real datasets

These highly rated courses combine lectures, live coding demonstrations and practical tutorials to help you build confidence analysing and interpreting omics data using R and other bioinformatics tools.

Courses are delivered online in small, digestible sessions designed to fit around your research schedule, with opportunities to ask questions and interact with experienced bioinformaticians throughout.

Upcoming Course Schedule

BSI Membership

BSI represents over 6,000 members around the world from a wide range of sectors and career stages. They are committed to connecting, supporting and empowering immunologists to drive forward scientific discovery and application together, and providing a powerful voice for immunology at the highest levels. 

Being a member of the BSI means being part of the leading charity organisation for immunology in the UK and one of the largest networks in the world for those interested in the immune system. BSI offer members unique opportunities to:

• Build your skills and advance your professional development through our varied grant schemes
• Engage with others working in immunology and grow your network at our popular events, including BSI Congress, and by getting involved with our Regional & Affinity Groups and our BSI Clinical Immunology Professional Network
• Contribute to our strong voice representing immunology at the highest levels by taking part in our policy and public engagement campaigns
• Keep up to date with cutting-edge research through the BSI family of journals and the latest developments in the world of immunology via our newsletters and membership magazine, Immunology News

Successful applicants for the Ling Felce Award will also receive a one-year membership to the BSI. 

Application Process

Researchers from across the CAMS Oxford Institute Network can apply throughout the year for funding. Applications will be reviewed by the COI training committee and we will endeavour to respond to all applications within one month of submission. 

Application Form

For the upcoming courses, please note the application deadlines below:

 DR LING FELCE

A scientist of extraordinary talent, Dr Ling Felce developed an interest in computational biology after completing the Oxford Biomedical Data Science Training Programme at the MRC Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine (MRC WIMM).

“Ling was one of the brightest and nicest people we’ve taught on the programme” says Dr David Sims, Associate Professor of Computational Genomics and director of the training programme, “she really leveraged it to take her career forward, which was great to see.”

Dr Felce’s work laid the groundwork for the bioinformatic research platform used by the Dong group at the Nuffield Department of Medicine and the MRC WIMM. After joining the team as a postdoctoral scientist in 2020, Dr Felce contributed to a number of projects investigating the immune response to infection with the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The bioinformatic suite at the CAMS-Oxford Institute has now been named in honour of these invaluable contributions. Read more here. 

The Ling Felce Award offers financial support for researchers to undertake training in the analysis and interpretation of large datasets. We hope that, in memory of Dr Felce, this award will help support the next generation of world-leading computational biologists.

In addition, this award will be used to support COI career development fellows to start their own research groups by providing funding for leadership and group management training programmes. It is believed that Ling would have taken up one of these fellow positions during her time at COI. 

Professor Dong shared the following tribute to Dr Felce:

"Dr Ling Felce joined our team in September 2020 as postdoctoral scientist, and immediately made significant contributions to several of our research projects studying the immune responses to the SARS-CoV-2 virus infection. Due to the pandemic, most of Ling’s interactions during her first year with us were via Zoom, but she made such an effort to get to know all of her new colleagues, and quickly became a beloved member of our lab family.

"Ling provided invaluable help and advice on several scientific projects, and her contributions will be greatly missed. She was always willing to help and support her colleagues and especially the students within the group, and she laid the foundations for our Bioinformatic research platform (soon to become a dedicated Bioinformatics centre within the newly established CAMS-Oxford Institute at Oxford University). Ling was an incredibly kind and delightful colleague: we will miss her smiling face in group meetings.

"Ling was a very bright young scientist, excited about the future and everything it may bring for her and her young family. We are devastated by this tragedy that has taken her at such a promising point in her life." 

If you would like to donate to this award, please use this link.

 LING FELCE AWARD recipients

Yuxin Zeng, DPhil Student

"I am very grateful to have received the Ling Felce Award to attend the OBDS course. My DPhil research focuses on analysing spatial transcriptomic and single-cell RNA sequencing datasets. The OBDS course provided essential training in R and Python programming tailored to these types of data analyses. The structured, hands-on nature of the programme significantly strengthened both my computational skills and my confidence in analysing large-scale datasets. I believe the skills I gained from this course will not only enhance my current research but will also be invaluable for my future career development. The Ling Felce Award made this opportunity possible, and I am sincerely thankful for the support it provides to researchers attending this training."

Kexin Yu, DPhil Student

"I am very grateful for the opportunity provided by the Ling Felce Award. I am a third-year DPhil student investigating the role of sialyltransferases in T cells. Part of my project relies on single-cell RNA-seq and bulk RNA-seq data to study gene expression in human T cells, which requires biostatistical analysis. Attending the OBDS training through the Ling Felce Award has allowed me to gain fundamental skills in both Linux and R, and to apply them directly to my project. This training will enable me to analyse complex sequencing data independently and advance my research more effectively. The skills I gained are highly relevant to my current studies and will also be essential for my future career in immunology. I really appreciate the opportunity the Ling Felce Award has given me."

Guihai Liu, DPhil Student

"I am really grateful for my Ling Felce award-funded place on the OBDS training course. Ling was an expert inbioinformatics and helped me a lot with RNAseq analysis for my DPhil project. Her enthusiasm motivated my interest in analysing large-scale datasets. My DPhil project focussed on SARS-CoV-2 spike specific CD4⁺ T cells and their anti-viral activity. To characterise spike specific CD4⁺ T cells, we carried out single-cell RNAseq and bulk RNAseq which required extensive bioinformatics analysis.  Prior to joining the OBDS course, I had only minimal experience of R programme and Linux command. The intensive and formal training has hugely increased my understanding and knowledge of both of these aspects and helped me understand how to analyse my data. Hopefully, after the 4-weeks of full-time training, I will be able to analyse bulk and single-cell RNAseq data."

Peter Wan, DPhil Student

"I am very grateful to receive The Ling Felce Award which fully funded my place in the OBDS course. My project focuses on developing novel therapeutics for cancer treatment. Bulk RNA sequencing and single-cell RNA sequencing are important techniques for me to understand the tumour heterogenicity. This course covers all the materials that I need for analysing the sequencing data, and provides me adequate exercises to train my coding skills. More importantly, the teachers are knowledgeable and the classes are interactive. The Ling Felce Award provide me an opportunity to learn the R programming language and methods for analysing RNA sequencing data, which will be very useful for my DPhil study and future career."

Zixi Yin, Postdoctoral Scientist

"I was very grateful for receiving the Ling Felce Award-funded placement for the OBDS training course. I took this course during the first year of my postdoctoral training at Oxford. My background is in immunology and lab-based research. One of my research projects involves using RNA-sequencing techniques to investigate the anti-viral activities of interferon-induced transmembrane protein 3 (IFITM3) in the context of virus infections. Therefore, I took the course to start learning R programming. Which I found really helpful about this course is the support from experienced trainers, as well as enough time for practice and discussion during the course. After several weeks of intensive training, I am now able to analyse my research data independently. Now I have moved to Yale as a Postdoc. The computational skills I learned from this course also help me in the new job for some imaging analysis work. The Ling Felce Award gave me the opportunity to take the course and opened the gateway to the realm of computational biology."

Noushin Zibandeh, Postdoctoral Scientist

"I am extremely delighted for winning the Ling Felce Award Funding which provides a significant boost to my academic journey and career development. This award helped me to get a qualification to analysis my Single‐cell RNA sequencing which is crucial for my research. Moreover, brings me a profound sense of comfort and confidence. My current research focuses on the understanding of immune ageing combined with the use of immunosuppression after kidney transplantation and its effect on cutaneous immunity. As an immunologist, I've developed the ability to conduct data analysis in my research project independently"

Sarah Short, DPhil Student

"I wish to express my sincere gratitude for being selected as a recipient of the Ling Felce Award, which allowed me to participate in the OBDS training course during the final year of my DPhil studies. My DPhil research is focused on the immunology of transplant rejection, with several sub-projects generating complex bulk RNAseq and spatial datasets requiring robust analysis. This course was invaluable for deepening my understanding of the bioinformatic methods required for accurate analysis of these datasets, as well as refining the coding skills required to progress my work with confidence. The course was expertly delivered so that it benefited every participant in a class of varying skill sets and data analysis backgrounds, and I'm incredibly grateful for the patience and skill of the experienced trainers. Given the ever-expanding volume and complexity of datasets generated in many biological research fields, I firmly believe the skills obtained in this course will not just immediately benefit me, but also prove to be fundamental skills for all of my future research endeavours. The Ling Felce Award was instrumental in enabling me to undertake this opportunity."

Alexandra Rampasekova, DPhil Student

"I am honoured to have received the Ling Felce Award, which has allowed me to take on the OBDS R course. The skills and knowledge obtained from this course will aid me in my DPhil project, which focuses on genome-wide screening for facilitators, deploying various bioinformatic approaches to identify the bioinformatic signatures of these novel regulatory elements. I am extremely keen to develop my programming skills under experienced WIMM bioinformaticians in a workshop-styled environment. Once again, I am grateful for the opportunity to take on the OBDS course, upholding the memory of Ling Felce."