ANGMA awards

ANGMA is committed to supporting our members with awards for different activities.

Previous awards

Congratulations to the Marcello Costa Awardees 2025

🏆 Inaugural Marcello Costa Young Investigator Awardees!!

We are honoured to announce the first recipients of the Marcello Costa Young Investigator Award:

👏 Klaas Van Mechelen (University of Melbourne)

👏 Srinivas Kamath (University of South Australia)

Established in memory of Professor Marcello Costa (1940–2024), a pioneer of Australian neurogastroenterology, this award celebrates research excellence and innovation among early career researchers.

We thank Professor Costa for his generous support in nurturing the next generation of neurogastroenterology researchers.

Congratulations to the ECR recipients for Oral and Poster Presentations Awards at ANGMA 2025

We are thrilled to announce the winners of the ANGMA Conference 2025 ECR Best Oral and Best Poster Presentation across both clinical and basic science!

ANGMA 2025 had a host of outstanding presentations of the latest data in the field. The judging panel awarded the following winners:

A big congratulations to our ANGMA 2025 Early Career Researcher Oral Presentation Awardees:

🏆Jacqui Anderson (University of Melbourne) – Clinical

🏆Edden Subejano (La Trobe University) – Basic Science

Outstanding presentations and research excellence in neurogastroenterology and motility!

ECR Poster Award Winners!!

Congratulations to the winners of this year’s ANGMA Early Career Researcher Poster Awards!!

🏅Da Dat LY (Deakin University) – Basic Science

🏅Awad Zahid (UNSW) – Clinical Science

These awards highlight great research and communication by emerging scientists in our community.

Congratulations to the recipients of our 2025 Microscopy Image Competition

We are thrilled to announce the winners of the 2025 Microscopy Image Competition, which celebrated the intersection of scientific excellence and visual artistry in the field of neurogastroenterology!

ANGMA received a stunning array of entries capturing the vibrant and intricate cellular networks that power digestive function. After careful consideration, the judging panel is pleased to congratulate the following winners:

🥇 First Prize – $500

Cherish Han
Title: Neuro-glia lacework
A breathtaking fluorescent image of the mouse colon myenteric plexus, showing Hu+ enteric neurons (red) and S100β+ enteric glia (green). The image reveals a delicate, lace-like network that orchestrates gut motility and reflexes; a true visualisation of the harmony between neurons and glia in the enteric nervous system.

🥈 Second Prize – $300

Jennifer Tang
Title: Plexitis in inflamed colon
This striking immunofluorescence image captures the inflammatory response within the myenteric plexus of a mouse with colitis. IBA+ macrophages (cyan) infiltrate GFAP+ ganglia (green), with Ki67 (red) highlighting active proliferation. The image powerfully illustrates the immune system’s interaction with the enteric nervous system during gut inflammation.

🥉 Third Prize – $200

Klaas Van Mechelen
Title: Wired for Digestion: the Enteric Nervous System in Bloom
A confocal Z-stack from a young mouse colon (P21) reveals the enteric nervous system in full bloom. With fluorescent markers for neurons (HuCD), glia (Sox10), and GCaMP3 highlighting live circuitry, this vibrant image captures the complexity and beauty of a gut wired for life and digestion.

ANGMA extends sincere thanks to all who participated, there were many outstanding images! We look forward to continuing this tradition in future competitions as we highlight the groundbreaking research happening across our community.

Stay tuned for more ANGMA initiatives, and congratulations once again to our 2025 winners!

Congratulations to the recipients of our FNM 2024 travel award!

ANGMA is proud to announce the recipients of our inaugural Early Career Researcher Travel Awards: Narges Mahdavian, Dr. Chu Kion Yao, and Dr. Madeleine Di Natale. Each awardee received $2,500 to attend the Federation of Neurogastroenterology and Motility meeting in Bangkok (Nov 6-8, 2024).

This prestigious event brought together global leaders in neurogastroenterology and motility. The recipients seized the opportunity to present their cutting-edge research, engage in meaningful discussions, and establish valuable international collaborations. Dr. Yao showcased her work on a novel intestinal gas measurement system, offering new insights into gut microbiota metabolism and personalized dietary therapies. Dr. Di Natale presented her leading work on gastric innervation and reflected on the excitement of sharing her latest findings and forming connections with emerging leaders in the field. Narges Mahdavian highlighted her work characterizing intrinsic and extrinsic innervation in Hirschsprung disease colon and emphasized the unique networking and learning experiences at both the Little Brain Big Brain 2024 and FNM, stressing the importance of interdisciplinary perspectives.

The ANGMA ECR Travel Awards play a vital role in supporting early-career researchers to engage with the international neurogastroenterology community, fostering innovation and collaboration. We congratulate our awardees and look forward to seeing the impact of their research in the years to come!