Biomedical engineering graduate students and postdoctoral researchers are recipients of highly competitive Ruth L. Kirschstein Predoctoral Individual National Research Service Awards from the National Institutes of Health and NIH Individual Predoctoral to Postdoctoral Fellow Transition Awards.
A majority of the students are in the Vanderbilt Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP) and are researchers in labs across engineering.
The goal of the NIH Kirschstein NRSA program is to help ensure that a diverse pool of highly trained scientists is available in appropriate scientific disciplines to address the country’s biomedical, behavioral and clinical research needs.
The F30 and F31 Kirschstein grants are awards to graduate students for their own research proposal in their mentors’ labs. The F30 is intended for predoctoral students in MD/PhD or other dual-degree training programs who integrate research and clinical training. The F31 is intended for predoctoral students in PhD programs working on biomedical research without a direct clinical component. Grants are awarded for a maximum of three to six years
F30/Ruth L. Kirschstein Individual Predoctoral NRSA for MD/PhD and other Dual Degree Fellowships
The purpose of this Kirschstein-NRSA program is to enhance the integrated research and clinical training of promising predoctoral students, who are matriculated in a combined MD/PhD or other dual-doctoral degree training program, and who intend careers as physician-scientists or other clinician-scientists.
Here are the awardees, their research topic, and mentor/lab:
- Thomas Li, Risk stratifying indeterminate pulmonary nodules with jointly learned features from longitudinal radiologic and clinical big data; Bennett Landman, Professor and chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
F31/Ruth L. Kirschstein Predoctoral Individual National Research Service Award
The Kirschstein F31 program is designed to enable promising predoctoral students who have potential to develop into productive, independent research scientists with the ability to obtain mentored research training while conducting dissertation research.
- Jessalyn Baljon, An engineered nanocarrier platform for enhancing immune responses to neoantigen-targeted cancer vaccines, John Wilson, associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering.
- Derek Doss, Dynamic multimodal connectivity analysis of brain networks in focal epilepsy, Dario Englot, associate professor of neurological surgery, radiology and radiological sciences, and biomedical engineering.
- Benjamin Hacker, Modeling immune cell recruitment and its impact on triple negative breast cancer recurrence in the irradiated microenvironment, Marjan Rafat, assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering.
- Paul Taufalele, Matrix stiffness mediated biglycan expression in the tumor vasculature, Cynthia Reinhart-King, University Distinguished Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Cell and Developmental Biology, Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor of Engineering, and Senior Associate Dean for Research.
- John Tierney, In vivo vascular delivery of an MK2 inhibitory peptide for the prevention of smooth muscle cell phenotype switch and intimal hyperplasia, Craig Duvall, Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor of Engineering, professor of biomedical engineering.
F32
The F32 Kirschstein award is available to all postdoctoral researchers doing research in the aging field.
- Katherine Young, Phenotypic sorting of cancer cells to study the role and control of cell stiffness in the in vivo metastatic cascade, Cynthia Reinhart-King, University Distinguished Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Cell and Developmental Biology, Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor of Engineering, and Senior Associate Dean for Research.
F99/K00
The purpose of the Predoctoral to Postdoctoral Fellow Transition Award (F99/K00) is to encourage and retain outstanding graduate students who have demonstrated potential and interest in pursuing careers as independent researchers. The award facilitates the transition of talented graduate students into successful research postdoctoral appointments.
- Wenjun Wang, Diabetes Mellitus promotes breast tumor progression via glycation mediated matrix stiffening, Cynthia Reinhart-King, University Distinguished Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Cell and Developmental Biology, Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor of Engineering, and Senior Associate Dean for Research.
- Sarah Goodale, Characterizing vigilance in fMRI data and its relation to age-related cognitive impairment, Catie Chang, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering.
- Sarah Libring, Matrix accumulation in the metastatic niche, Cynthia Reinhart-King, University Distinguished Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Cell and Developmental Biology, Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor of Engineering, and Senior Associate Dean for Research.
Contact: brenda.ellis@vanderbilt.edu