Grants, Honors, Awards & Recognitions

Ayush Kumar, an MD/PhD student in his third year of dissertation research in the lab of Art Mercurio, PhD, was selected as the winner of the 2024 AMA Research Challenge—a national competition hosted by the American Medical Association in which medical students and residents showcase their research, culminating in presenting their work to an elite panel of judges. The AMA Research Challenge is the largest multi-specialty medical research conference in the nation. Mr. Kumar will be awarded the grand prize of $10,000.

Read more about the award, and view a video of the finals here.

Scot Wolfe, PhD, and collaborator Charles Emerson, Jr. (professor of neurology and Director of the Wellstone Muscular Dystrophy Program at UMass Chan) have received a three-year grant from the Muscular Dystrophy Association to develop a precise genome editing therapy to correct a common mutation in the TCAP gene, which leads to the R7 subtype of limb girdle muscular dystrophy. The project, which combines the use of stem cell, nanoparticle, mouse model and genome editing technologies, will provide a versatile platform to develop correction therapies for other gene mutations that cause other types of muscular dystrophy.

Andreas Bergmann, PhD, has been featured by the UMass Cancer Walk ahead of the annual event. Learn more about how Dr. Bergmann got into the field of cancer research, and his thoughts on what makes UMass Chan a special place to do research.

Read the full story on the UMass Cancer Walk website.

Marcus Ruscetti, PhD, and collaborator (and MCCB adjunct faculty) Prabhani Atukorale, PhD, have been featured in a news spotlight by NBC10 Boston to showcase their ground-breaking combination immunotherapy approach that drammatically reduces pancreatic tumors in mice.

Watch the video from NBC10 Boston, and read the related story from UMass Chan News.

Yong-Xu Wang, PhD, has received NIH funding from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) to investigate a new approach for resolution of nonalcoholic fatty liver and nonalcoholic steatohepatitis by a novel adipokine. Nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) is a type of liver disease caused by the accumulation of fat in the organ, and can lead to cirrhosis, liver failure and cancer. The grant will determine whether an adipose-enriched cytokine identified by Dr. Wang’s group can improve NASH symptoms in mouse models of the disease, and will investigate the cytokine’s mechanism-of-action.

Leslie Shaw, PhD, has received NIH funding from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to investigate the role of IRS2 and mitotic regulation in breast cancer. The grant will explore the mechanism by which IRS2, a signaling adaptor protein, regulates chromosome segregation during cell division, and evaluate the feasibility of targeting IRS2 as a therapeutic strategy for the treatment of triple negative breast cancer, an aggressive type of breast cancer.