Grants and what we'll do with them

We’ve been incredibly fortunate lately. Our lab has received two grants which will help fund us for the next five years. Grants help to fund our science by paying the salaries of the people in our labs. The majority of a grant is salary support, unless it’s been otherwise designated. Grant money supports the livelihood of people working in the lab. Here is a quick summary of some of the work that these to grants will support:

NIH/NIGMS MIRA R35 - Investigating the Impact of Genetic Variation on ER Stress Response and Disease

This grant differs from the standard NIH R01 in that it is meant to fund multiple projects that fall under a common theme in a particular lab. For us, this was really nice, as we have common thread of understanding how genetic variation impacts disease. This grant will support three projects:

Project 1: Understanding the underlying genetic architecture that contribute to differences in individual ER stress responses.
Project 2: Understanding how genetic variation affects Retinitis Pigmentosa, a retinal degeneration disease.
Project 3: Understanding how genetic variation affects NGLY1 deficiency, a rare metabolic disorder of deglycosylation.

You can read a more formal summary of this grant here.

Glenn Award for Research in Biological Mechanisms of Aging

Again, our lab is broadly interested in understanding how genetic variation impacts the ER stress response. This grant will allow us to begin studies where we introduce a new dimension to this work – age. We are interested in understanding how the role genetic variation on the ER stress response changes as an individual ages. This has important implications for age related diseases like cancer and dementia.

These grants will go a long way in advancing the work in our lab. We have a talented team of excited techs, students, and postdocs working hard on these projects.