Kirsty McDermott Memorial Graduate Scholarship

The Cure Kids Kirsty McDermott Memorial Postgraduate Scholarship in Child Health Research is named after Kirsty McDermott, who suffered from a serious blood disorder for most of her short life.  Kirsty tragically died at the age of seven as a result of an automobile accident.

Members of the Boston Wool Trade, who had a long business association with the McDermott family, established a Fund in her memory in 1982.  In 2008 the Fund was converted from support for Child Health Research to the establishment of a Graduate Research Scholarship to fund research in to improving children’s health.

Sarah Holman was the inaugural Kirsty McDermott Memorial Graduate Scholar and continues to study under the scholarship.  In 2010 Sarah has continued to work on a group of disorders caused by mutations to the WTX gene - a gene critical to the health and structure of the developing skeleton.  Paradoxically this gene is also a trigger for the development of cancer and Sarah’s work is focused on understanding how two such different genetic tasks are performed by the same gene.

Her findings indicate that while the effect the mutations to the WTX gene have on the skeleton remains the same no matter when in the lifespan they occur; the genetic triggers for cancer may be dependent on the timing of the damage. 

Sarah’s work has entered a fourth year and has already resulted in the publication of two important papers in international journals. She is shortly to present her findings at the Annual Scientific Meeting of the European Society of Human Genetics in Amsterdam.