Young Scholar Awards Program 2019-20

Once a year, the CMI invites it’s Associate Members to submit research proposals (from interdisciplinary teams of associate members) for the Summer Interdisciplinary Research Initiative (SIRI). Selected Associate Members will be named CMI Young Scholars and will serve as mentors for an undergraduate student in Spring/Summer of 2020.

To facilitate the collaborative proposal development process an event will be held in the BPC  from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM on October 3rd.  This served as a “meet and greet” introduction/brainstorming session to begin the networking.  On October 17th, there was an additional brainstorming session between Associate Members and at the end, they presented their ideas to a panel for constructive input.  Written proposals were then due the following week, October 24th by 5 PM.

The following proposals were awarded:

Chlymydia trachomatis immune response in primary porcine intestinal epithelial cells (Mentors: Amanda Amaral, Ceceilia Schaaf) (PI: Tobias Kaeser, Co-PI: Liara Gonzalez)

Designer 3D matrices for hair follicale stem cell organoids (Mentors: Kathryn Polkoff, Parth Chansoria) (PI: Jorge Piedrahita, Co-PI: Rohan Shirwaiker)

Using decellularized ECM and DWNFE to create a tissue-on-a-chip to model the bone-tendon-muscle system (Mentors: Zack Davis, Andreea Badileanu, Stacy Schkoda) (PI: Matthew Fisher, Co-PI: Donald Freytes, Seth Kullman)

Aerosolized delivery of micro-dosed liposome-encapsulated oligonucleotides for the treatment of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis in a murine model (Mentors: Kristen Popowski, Douglas Snider, Ana Gracioso Martins, Karl Schuchard) (PI: Ke Cheng, Co-PI: Glenn Cruse, Donald Freytes, Rohan Shirwaiker)

Investigating the electronic-cigarette effect on mice lungs through 3D-imaging (Mentors: Adele Moatti, Anne Crews) (PI: Alon Greenbaum, Co-PI: Kenneth Adler)

Modeling clinical dosimetry despite effect of lung inflammation: Validation of in silico computational fluid dynamics-based and in vitro 3D printed respiratory system models for comparison to drug delivery in vivo to pigs with pulmonary inflammation (Mentors: Karl Schuchard, Jessica Gilbertie) (PI: Rohan Shirwaiker, Co-PI: Megan Jacob).

The proposal team requirements were that at least two existing full-member CMI research groups must be represented by the associate members and there needs to be a lead faculty (PI)/ lab identified.  Associate members can serve as links between labs to facility the participation of labs without associate members. Proposals across CMI research programs are encouraged.  The research teams will be provided $8000 ($4400 for undergraduate stipend and $3600 in supply money to support their research).