Three researchers from Washington University in St. Louis have received highly competitive and prestigious National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director’s awards for “High Risk, High Reward” medical research funding totaling $10 million over five years.
Hong Chen, PhD, an associate professor of biomedical engineering at the McKelvey School of Engineering and of neurosurgery at the School of Medicine, and Adam Kepecs, PhD, the Robert J. Terry Professor of Neuroscience and a professor of psychiatry at the School of Medicine, were among eight nationwide receiving the NIH Director’s Pioneer Award.
Chen‘s award provides $5.4 million for her research on ultrasound to induce a hibernation-like state in mammals, and Kepecs will receive a total of $3.5 million. His lab will use the funds to study how the brain’s neural circuits decode signals from the immune system and orchestrate adjustments in behavior and motivation.
Maria Catalina Camacho, PhD, an assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry at WashU Medicine, received the NIH Director’s Early Independence Award, which is awarded to “promising, newly graduated scientists with the intellect, scientific creativity, drive and maturity” to take an accelerated path to an independent research career. The award provides nearly $1.3 million. She will be studying the neurobiological underpinnings that place some children at risk for developing anxiety or depressive symptoms.