SAN DIEGO (CNS) - UC San Diego's School of Medicine Monday awarded the inaugural recipients of its pivot grant program, an initiative intended to protect the region's biomedical research sector amid declining federal investment.
Bolstered by a $1 million gift from Prebys Foundation, UCSD selected 17 projects in this initial round of funding.
"UC San Diego is a research powerhouse at the forefront of life-changing technological breakthroughs and medical advancements that benefit patients around the world," UCSD Chancellor Pradeep Khosla said. "We are so grateful to Prebys Foundation for their visionary support of UC San Diego researchers with the goal of allowing them to continue their groundbreaking research despite budgetary challenges facing the campus."
Researchers who were eligible for the grants include those who had seen their federal grants terminated or been given a stop-work order, reduced budgets and/or delays in receiving funds for their research.
"This program is about preserving momentum and protecting scientists," said Dr. Barbara Jung, associate vice chancellor and dean at UCSD School of Medicine and principal investigator for the gift. "When critical research is interrupted because of federal delays or cancellations, entire research teams can collapse. This program intervenes to make sure that doesn't happen here."
Applicants were asked to demonstrate the financial impact of disruptions in funding, but also what risks they might face by not being funded adequately -- such as lost jobs, ruined research, etc.
"At Prebys Foundation, we believe in protecting the promise of science, not just the breakthroughs it produces, but the people who make them possible," said Grant Oliphant, Prebys Foundation CEO and president. "These grants are about ensuring that bold ideas and brilliant researchers don't get lost to circumstance. UC San Diego and the people who work there are one of the crown jewels of our region's innovation ecosystem, and we're proud to help keep its momentum strong."
Some of the funded projects include:
-- Agency for All: A global initiative that "explores how individual and collective agency -- people's ability to make choices and act on them -- drives health behavior and outcomes."
-- Gender LEAD: Gender Leadership, Equity and Advancement for Development: As part of USAID's Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment Hub, the Gender LEAD Program "provides thought leadership on how to consider, evaluate and address the ways in which USAID country-level investments shaped and were shaped by gender influences."
-- Impact of Hormone Therapy on Viral Dynamics and Immune Responses: This project "investigates how hormone therapy, particularly estradiol, impacts HIV persistence, immune activation and metabolism."
-- Social Network Disruption, Viral Transmission and Care Dynamics Among the Forcibly Displaced: "By combining social network analysis, behavioral data and viral genetics, this study examines how forced displacement and disrupted social networks affect the transmission and care of viruses."
-- Plasma Proteomic Signatures of Physical Activity and Alzheimer's Disease and Related Dementias: Using machine learning, this study aims to "uncover how physical activity influences the risk of Alzheimer's disease and related dementias by identifying molecular pathways that are linked to exercise, aging and cognitive decline."
Each project and its research team received between $50,000 and $100,000 through the grants.
"We aren't just funding research, we are preserving capability, leadership and innovation capacity in the region," said Samuel Ward, vice dean for research at School of Medicine and chair of the pivot grant review committee. "This program reflects our belief that talented scientists are one of the most valuable -- and vulnerable -- resources in health research. We're doing everything we can to support them and keep their work in motion."
Copyright 2025, City News Service, Inc.
