Dr Güneş Taylor has been awarded a prestigious Chancellor’s Fellowship with the College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine (12 June, 2024). Image Established in 2014, Chancellor’s Fellowships are five-year tenure track positions that invest in researchers delivering cutting-edge interdisciplinary research and innovation. They are designed to help the most promising academics advance from the early stages of their career to more senior roles and to empower their ground-breaking research. Over the course of the next five years Dr Taylor and nine other Fellows will be supported in developing their ideas and finding their future place within a thriving University of Edinburgh research community. Her research programme seeks to serve female health and fertility needs by deepening the understanding of the cells that support egg growth within the ovary. The molecular mechanisms driving the specification and function of supporting pregranulosa cells within the ovary will be investigated using a combination of animal models and technical approaches. Güneş undertook her DPhil at the University of Oxford with Professor Tatjana Sauka-Spengler developing molecular tools to probe the gene regulatory networks underpinning neural crest development and investigating the role of chromatin remodeller CHD7 within this network. Her postdoctoral work with Professor Robin Lovell-Badge at The Francis Crick Institute in London revealed the mechanism of sex determination in avians and progressively focussed on the specification and activation of pregranulosa cells within the vertebrate ovary. Her independent research programme uses multimodal approaches to uncover the molecular mechanism by which primordial follicles are recruited for onward maturation from the finite ovarian reserve. Alongside her research, Güneş has substantial experience in communicating research findings to a wide diversity of audiences. I am utterly honoured to be establishing my research program investigating the molecular details of ovarian formation and function with the support of the CRH. With its longstanding and world-class legacy, realising my ambitions for improving female health outcomes will be all the more attainable for being situated in the IRR at the wider University of Edinburgh. Dr Güneş Taylor We are delighted that Dr Gunes Taylor will be joining us in CRH as a new Chancellor’s Fellow from the Francis Crick Institute. Gunes is a molecular biologist with research expertise in ovarian function and she will work closely with existing teams within the CRH and IRR with the ultimate goal of developing solutions for women’s health and fertility. Professor Andrew HorneDirector of the Centre for Reproductive Health within the Institute of Regeneration and Repair Please access further information on this Fellows announcement via this link: Chancellor's Fellows 2024 - round two | The University of Edinburgh Publication date 12 Jun, 2024