The National Disease Research Interchange (NDRI) has announced the second cohort of winners of its Pilot Award Program: Amanadine Chaix, PhD; Lily Cheng, MD; Fatima Fattahi, PhD; Keren Hilgendorf, PhD; Stanislovas Jankauskas, PhD; Frank Ko, PhD; Yun Rose Li, MD, PhD; Sobuj Mia, PhD; Michael Paley, MD, PhD; and Yvonne Ulrich-Lai, PhD.
Launched in 2024, the Pilot Award Program is a component of NDRI’s NIH-supported Human Tissues and Organs for Research Resource (HTORR) program which facilitates the collection of preliminary data necessary for an investigator to obtain subsequent funding. Over the course of two years, the awarded investigators will receive up to 10 biological samples each, with all preservation and shipping costs covered, as well as supplementary support to develop grant applications to the NIH Institute that supported their award. The awards are supported by several NIH institutes, including:
- The Office of Research Infrastructure Programs (ORIP)
- The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)
- The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI)
- The National Eye Institute (NEI)
- The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK)
- The National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS)
“We are excited to announce the latest honorees of the Pilot Award Program,” said Thomas Bell, Ph.D., NDRI’s Chief Scientific Officer. “We started this program to expand access to human tissue for promising young researchers who will drive the next generation of scientific breakthroughs as well as established researchers who are making the leap from other model systems, and we are proud of the amazing work this cycle’s awardees are doing and will continue to do.”
Amanadine Chaix, Ph.D. | Assistant Professor, Nutrition and Integrative Physiology | University of Utah Dr. Chaix is studying the effects of GLP-1 agonists, or incretin mimetics, on adipose tissues. Her team’s research in mice has shown that these medications not only lead to weight loss but may also restore normal function to fat stem cells. Dr. Chaix plans to study human fat tissue samples of patients taking these medications in order to improve obesity treatments and develop new therapies targeting tissue directly.
Lily Cheng, M.D. | Assistant Professor, Pediatric Surgery | University of Virginia Chronic idiopathic constipation affects as many as 1 in 5 people and is a significant burden on the healthcare system. Building on previous research into the enteric nervous system (ENS) as a key regulator of intestinal function, Dr. Cheng’s research focuses on better characterizing abnormalities in the ENS and its extracellular matrix and investigating and understanding the cellular and molecular processes that lead to chronic idiopathic constipation.
Fatima Fattahi, Ph.D. | Assistant Research Scientist, Internal Medicine – Allergy | University of Michigan Dr. Fattahi is studying airway remodeling in patients with chronic asthma, in which structural changes in the lungs worsen symptoms and contribute to disease progression. Specifically, she is looking at subepithelial fibrosis, which stiffens the airway wall and limits treatment success, even with the best available therapies. This project aims to better understand the molecular mechanisms that drive this fibrosis in chronic allergic asthma.
Keren Hilgendorf, Ph.D. | Assistant Professor, Biochemistry | University of Utah Obesity is the leading risk factor for type 2 diabetes. How and where excess calories are stored profoundly affects metabolic health: metabolically healthy obese individuals have better visceral fat tissue function compared to metabolically unhealthy obese individuals. Dr. Hilgendorf’s research aims to improve treatment for obesity as a means of diabetes prevention by understanding how excess calories activate fat stem cells and why this process becomes impaired in some people.
Stanislovas Jankauskas, Ph.D. | Research Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine (Cardiology) | Albert Einstein College of Medicine Dr. Jankauskas is studying Type 2 diabetes in older adults to understand how aging changes mitochondrial function and clearance in pancreatic beta cells, and whether a natural compound called β-hydroxybutyrate (BHB) can reverse those changes. If successful, this research could lead to a new way to treat or even prevent diabetes in older adults—using a safe, natural compound that the body already makes.
Frank Ko, Ph.D. | Assistant Professor, Anatomy & Cell Biology | Rush University Dr. Ko studies the mechanisms underpinning musculoskeletal diseases such as osteoporosis, fracture, or arthritis. His project will complement ongoing studies in imaging arthritic tissues using innovative clearing and light sheet microscopy imaging, revealing comprehensive anatomical features in both the normal and diseased joint.
Yun Rose Li, M.D., Ph.D. | Assistant Clinical Professor, Department of Radiation Oncology | City of Hope Dr. Li is investigating how damage to the blood vessel lining in the kidneys plays a role in Diabetic Kidney Disease (DKD). Her research focuses on uncovering the links between DNA damage, blood vessel dysfunction, and DKD. These findings could pave the way for new treatments to prevent or slow the progression of kidney disease in people with diabetes.
Sobuj Mia, Ph.D. | Research Assistant Professor, Pharmacology, Physiology, & Neurobiology | University of Cincinnati College of Medicine The body’s process of turning food into energy can also produce harmful substances that can damage heart and leg muscles over time. In diabetes patients, high blood sugar and fat levels make this problem worse, leading to heart failure or leg muscle problems that reduce life expectancy. Dr. Mia’s project is focused on better understanding how sugar-related damage happens in the leg muscles of people with diabetes in the hope of developing new treatments to improve quality of life for people with diabetes.
Michael Paley, M.D., Ph.D. | Assistant Professor of Medicine, Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, Assistant Professor of Pathology and Immunology | Washington University School of Medicine Dr. Paley is investigating Axial Spondyloarthritis and Acute Anterior Uveitis, autoimmune diseases of the spine and eye in which the immune system attacks one’s own body. His team has identified a protein that is a likely target of the immune attacks in these diseases, and the goal of this project is to define how these diseases develop.
Yvonne Ulrich-Lai, Ph.D. | Professor Pharmacology, Physiology, & Neurobiology | University of Cincinnati College of Medicine Dr. Ulrich-Lai is studying disregulation in the complex network of brain regions that affect the desire to seek out tasty but unhealthy foods. Ultimately, this information will indicate whether modulation of neural activity is a promising treatment approach for obesity and will help identify the specific brain locations with the greatest therapeutic potential.
Applications for the next round of awards are currently open, with the next cohort being announced in Winter 2025. For more information or to apply, visit https://ndriresource.org/pilot-award-program/.
About the Pilot Award Program: Primary diseased and control human tissue samples are a vital resource for starting new programs focusing on human disease research, but they can be both expensive and difficult for investigators to obtain, especially before securing a grant. The Human Tissues and Organs for Research Resource Pilot Award Program (PAP) seeks to enable the completion of pilot studies necessary for an investigator to obtain subsequent funding. These 2-year awards provide up to 10 biological samples per awarded investigator, covering all costs associated with obtaining the biospecimens, including tissue preservation reagents and shipping costs. Pilot Award Program awardees will also receive additional technical support for tissue procurement protocol design to help bolster rigor and reproducibility in their experimental data and analysis. Importantly, as this Pilot Award is intended to generate the preliminary data necessary for an investigator to obtain subsequent funding, a stipulation of this award is that the data generated through the completed Pilot Award study is expected to be used in at least one subsequent grant application to at least one of the following NIH Institutes by the end of the 2-year project period: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), the National Eye Institute (NEI), the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS), or the Office of Research Infrastructure Programs (ORIP).