The National Institutes of Health has awarded 86 grants to scientists working in biomedical research as part of this year鈥檚 Research聽program. Three 91探花 faculty members are among those honored with a grant.
The program聽funds聽exceptionally creative scientists proposing to use highly innovative approaches to tackle major challenges in biomedical research. The program supports high-risk ideas with high-impact potential, and applicants are encouraged to think outside the box and to pursue exciting, trailblazing ideas in any area of research relevant to the NIH mission.
The 2017 91探花recipients:
, assistant professor of chemistry, and聽, professor of chemistry and bioengineering, are co-recipients of a聽鈥淭ransformative Research Award.”
Chiu and Vaughan are developing radical new technologies for high-resolution mapping of brain tissue, including circuit-level spatial information down to a resolution of 50 nanometers and comprehensive analysis of the types of proteins present across large regions of the brain. These techniques are needed because it is technically difficult to directly detect large numbers of proteins in brain tissue.
Instead of trying to measure proteins directly, most approaches measure RNA molecules 鈥� a precursor to proteins. But RNA detection in spatially complex brain tissue has its flaws. Current approaches聽struggle with dim signals that are difficult to detect over background noise in complex, thick tissues. Chiu and Vaughan will develop new fluorescent probes to light up RNA molecules聽in tissues and will use a novel, large-area light sheet microscope 鈥� together with sample processing techniques 鈥� to rapidly probe large volumes of brain tissue at high spatial resolution.
joined the faculty of the 91探花School of Medicine last year as an assistant professor of immunology.聽He is interested in the early warning system that mammals use to detect invasion by parasitic worms and allergens.聽Both trigger the same defensive reactions. discovered that tuft cells, found in the intestinal lining, are essential to these immune responses.聽These cells鈥� intriguing capacity to 鈥渢aste鈥� intestinal contents suggests they are the sentinels that first spot worms.聽With the funds provided by the 鈥淣ew Innovator Award,鈥� his lab aims to find the specific worm-alert receptor on tuft cells and the molecule that activates this receptor. The researchers hope that this work will point out new therapeutic targets for preventing and treating worm infestations and allergic disease.聽 Last year, von Moltke聽received the Damon Runyon-Dale F. Frey Award for Breakthrough Scientists. This award recognizes the potential of his immune-response research to transform the understanding of cancer progression.