The UVA Brain Institute is pleased to announce the recipients of the fall cycle of the 2024 Transformative Neuroscience Pilot Grant awards. Seven research teams from the Schools of Medicine, Engineering & Applied Sciences, and the College of Arts & Sciences received pilot funds to pursue groundbreaking neuroscience. The purpose of the program is to tackle important questions, promote interdisciplinary collaboration, and perform groundbreaking work that will enhance our research enterprise.
Awarded applications were selected after two rounds of review based on 1) Scientific Merit – Significance, Innovation, Approach, Investigators; 2) Potential for scientific impact and future external funding; and 3) Potential impact of the pilot award on the project and team. A total of 20 applications were received for the second cycle. Each written application was initially scored by two or more internal reviewers, and ten finalist teams were invited to pitch their project to a panel of peer reviewers from across the UVA neuroscience community. Both initial scores from written review and pitch scores were considered to determine awardees.
Recipients of Cycle 2 Awards
- Kim Penberthy, PhD, Department of Psychiatry & Neurobehavioral Sciences; Patrick Finan, PhD, Department of Anesthesiology; and Nassima Ait-Daoud Tiouririne, MD, Department of Psychiatry & Neurobehavioral Sciences — Impact of Psilocybin on Prolonged Grief
- Jessica Connelly, PhD, Department of Psychology; Per Sederberg, PhD, Department of Psychology; Alev Erisir, MD, PhD, Department of Psychology; Jamie Morris, PhD, Department of Psychology — Refining MR imaging and analysis methods in the prairie vole to uncover functional differences in the brain of high care fathers
- Sarah Siegrist, PhD, Department of Biology; Michelle Bland, PhD, Department of Pharmacology — Uncovering the Molecular Mechanism of Early-Life Infection on Brain Development Using Model Organisms
- Ryan Kellogg, MD, Department of Neurosurgery; Matthew Panzer, PhD, Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering — Computational Biomechanics Simulator of Neuro-Endovascular Surgery to Predict Device Performance
- Chris Deppmann, PhD, Department of Biology; Sarah Kucenas, PhD, Department of Biology — Discovery of a Novel Role for Sarm1 in Early Protective Schwann Cells After Injury
- Lulu Jiang, MD, PhD, Department of Neuroscience; Huan Bao, PhD, Department of Molecular Physiology and Biological Physics — APOE Genotypes Shaping Lipid and Protein Interactions during Tau Propagation in Pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease
Read more about the 2024 Transformative Neuroscience Pilot Grant Awards on the UVA Brain Institute website.
Filed Under: Research