Stanford Medicine scientists win Arc Institute awards

The Arc Institute, a research organization in Palo Alto, California, that’s focused on new approaches to scientific discovery and translation, has honored six Stanford Medicine professors with research grants.

Innovation Investigators, chosen because of their curiosity-driven research, receive $1 million in funding over five years along with the opportunity to collaborate with Arc scientists and use Arc facilities and equipment. Two professors at Stanford Medicine were named Innovation Investigators:

Nathanael Gray, PhD, a professor of chemical and systems biology and the Krishnan-Shah Family Professor, uses the tools of synthetic chemistry, protein biochemistry and cancer biology to find and validate new methods for addressing anti-cancer targets.

William Greenleaf, PhD, a professor of genetics, develops methods to investigate the structure and function of molecules encoded by the genome as well as the physical compaction and folding of the genome.

This year the Arc Institute introduced the Ignite Awards, a grant of $100,000 given to researchers who are exploring little-known scientific territory. Four researchers at Stanford Medicine received an Ignite Award:

Katrin Andreasson, MD, a professor of neurology, investigates the role that immune responses play in the development of neurological diseases.

Michael Fischbach, PhD, an associate professor of bioengineering, investigates the human microbiome with a focus on technology development, molecular mechanisms and novel therapeutics.

Calvin Kuo, MD, PhD, a professor of hematology and the Maureen Lyles D’Ambrogio Professor, grows three-dimensional organoids to model and treat diseases such as cancer as well as autoimmunity and infectious diseases.

Julia Salzman, PhD, associate professor of biomedical data science and of biochemistry, develops statistical algorithms to understand the evolution of genomes.