Skip to main content

2024-25 “Think, Collaborate & Do” Awards Announced

2024-2025 Faculty Awards:

  • Enhancing Development of New Therapeutic Candidates for Neutrophilic Asthma through Experimental and Mathematical Modeling Approaches. PIs: Sarah Shelton (COE), Rosemary Bayless (CVM), Sharon Lubkin (COS). Funded by CMI, COE, & KIETS.
  • Machine Learning to the Rescue: Data-Driven Prediction of Radiotherapy-Induced Normal Tissue Injury in Canine Cancer Treatment. PIs: S. Mohammad Hosseinian (COE), Michael Nolan (CVM). Funded by CMI, COE, & KIETS.
  • Integrating Sequence, Structure, and Dynamics to Predict and Design Nucleic Acids. PIs: Xingcheng Lin (COS), Keith Weninger (COS), Yi Xiao (COS). Funded by CMI, GGA, & KIETS.
  • Modeling cellular response to fibrous biomaterial properties for skin tissue engineering. PIs: Jessica Gluck (WCOT), Nathaniel Josephs (COS), Orlando Arguello-Miranda (CALS). Funded by CMI, WCOT, & KIETS.
  • Development of DRIFT Therapy to Boost Pulmonary Drug Delivery. PIs: Jian Zhang (CVM), Zixuan Cang (COS). Funded by CMI, with an entrepreneurial supplement.
  • A Field-Deployable CRISPR Diagnostic Platform for Early Canine Cancer Detection. PIs: Qingshan Wei (COE), Matthew Breen (CVM). Funded by GGA & private donations.
  • Defining and Targeting Cancer-Associated Fibroblasts in the Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma Tumor Microenvironment. PIs: Sarah Shelton (COE), Shawn Gomez (COE/UNC). Funded by CMI & KIETS.
  • Cell Biology and Topology Meet to Inform Models of Cell Migration Fluidization. PIs: Jason Haugh (COE), Kevin Flores (COS). Funded by CMI & KIETS.
  • Accelerating the Discovery of Functional lncRNAs with Large Language Models. PIs: Xinxia Peng (CVM), Xiaorui Liu (COE). Funded by CMI.
  • Data-driven causal discovery of cell-cell communication impacts from transcriptomic data: recovering signaling mechanisms of lung development. PIs: Zixuan Cang (COS), Shu Yang (COS), Jorge Piedrahita (CVM). Funded by CMI & GGA.
  • Innovative computational methods to decipher cell cycle dynamics from single cell transcriptomes of easily cultured, yet complex eukaryotes. PIs: Nicholas Buchler (CVM), Zixuan Cang (COS). Funded by CMI & GGA.
  • High-Throughput Engineering of Activatable Human Kinases. PIs: Albert Keung (COE), Klaus Hahn (UNC), Balaji Rao (COE). Funded by CMI.
  • Transcatheter injectable biomaterial for next generation tumor embolization.PIs: Jingjie Hu (COE), Jessica Gluck (WCOT), Ashley Brown (COE). Funded by CMI & COE.
  • Investigation of Ultrasound Medullary Rim Signs as an Early Imaging Biomarker for CKD in Cats. PIs: Kennita Johnson (COE), Shelly Vaden (CVM), Autumn Harris (CVM), Gabi Seiler (CVM). Funded by CVM.

2024-2025 Student Awards:

  • Tracking DNA-Targeting Chemotherapeutics in Cancer Cells Using Single-Molecule Imaging. PIs: Md Abul Shahid (WCOT), Ummay Mowshome Jahan (WCOT), Md Arifuzzaman (COS). Funded by CMI.
  • Leveraging bioinformatics to explore the gut-lung axis in foals with neonatal sepsis. PIs: Megan Palmisano (CVM), Taylor Gin (CVM). Funded by CMI.

Congratulations to all our awardees!