Stanford Institute for Immunity, Transplantation and Infection awards seed grants

The Stanford Institute for Immunity, Transplantation and Infection has awarded seed grants to 12 interdisciplinary research projects led by faculty members and young investigators.

Successful projects had to propose interdisciplinary research that would use Stanford’s Human Immune Monitoring Center, which offers an array of methods to examine immune system activity.

The following faculty researchers each received $50,000 to fund their projects:

• Jason Andrews, MD, assistant professor of infectious diseases, for “Evaluating Mycobacterium Tuberculosis Transcriptional Responses as a Treatment Biomarker.”
• Niaz Banaei, MD, associate professor of pathology and infectious diseases, for “Defining Human Lung Alveolar Macrophage Subsets and Dissecting Their Cellular and Molecular Interactions with Mycobacterium Tuberculosis.”
• Lynette Cegelski, PhD, assistant professor of chemistry, for “Translating Mechanical Properties at the Host-Pathogen Interface into New Strategies to Target Urinary Tract Infections.”
• Everett Meyer, MD, PhD, assistant professor of medicine, for “Clinical Monitoring of HLA-allele Mismatch Alloreactivity Using T-Cell Repertoire Population and Single Cell Sequencing and CyTOF.”
• Julie Parsonnet, MD, professor of infectious diseases and of health research and policy, for “Effects of Probiotics on Gut Function, Integrity and Inflammation in Bangladeshi Infants.”
• Theo Palmer, PhD, associate professor of neurosurgery, for “Convergence of Genetic and Gestational Immune Mechanisms in CHD8-related ASD.”
• Kenneth Weinberg, MD, professor of pediatrics, for “Optimizing Cytotoxic T Lymphocyte Therapy of EPB-PTLD by Clonal Tracking of Viral and Lymphocyte Populations.”

Grants for young investigators

The following young investigators each received $25,000 to fund their projects:

• Cathrin Czupalla, PhD, postdoctoral scholar in pathology, with Eugene Butcher, MD, professor of pathology, for “Cerebrovascular Changes in Alzheimer’s Disease — an Inflammatory Link?” 
• Gozde Durmus, PhD, postdoctoral scholar in biochemistry, with Ron Davis, PhD, professor of biochemistry and of genetics, for “Magnetic Levitation-Mediated Platform for Rapid and Label-Free Detection of Antibiotic Resistance in Real-Time.”
• Wen-Yuan Elena Hsieh, MD, instructor in pediatrics, with Garry Nolan, PhD, professor of microbiology and immunology, for “Understanding Systematic Lupus Erythematosus Disease Heterogeneity at the Single-Cell Level Via Mass Cytometry.”
• Dominik Schnaidawind, MD, postdoctoral scholar in bone and marrow transplantation, with Robert Negrin, MD, professor of medicine, for “Tolerogenic Invariant Natural Killer T Cells for Promotion of Solid Organ Transplant Tolerance and Prevention of GVHD.”
• Timothy Sweeney, MD, PhD, a student pursuing a master’s degree in biomedical informatics, with Purvesh Khatri, PhD, assistant professor of medicine, for “Prospective Validation of an 11-Gene Set for Distinguishing Sterile SIRS from Sepsis in Pediatric ICU Patients at Admission.”

Funding for the 2015 seed grants comes from the School of Medicine Dean’s Office, the Marion Avery Seed Grant for ITI, the ITI General Gift Fund and a Child Health Research Institute academic grant.