2025 DOM Research Pilot Award recipients announced

Hilary Faust, MD, MS, in the lab.

Ten faculty members from the Department of Medicine (DOM) have received funding through the DOM Research Pilot Program, sponsored by the Office of Research Services.

The Research Pilot Program supports innovative work in basic, translational, clinical, and health services research, with an overarching goal of helping DOM faculty and research staff generate preliminary data, publish findings, and build collaborations that strengthen future applications for external funding.

Awards are given in four categories; recipients are listed by category below.

General Pilot Awards

General Pilot Awards provide up to $50,000 for one year to support the collection of pilot data for an upcoming grant submission or a project that represents a new research direction that is currently unfunded for an investigator. This award cycle’s recipients are:

  • Hilary Faust, MD, MS, assistant professor, Allergy, Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine – Novel Approaches to Identify and Targeting Sepsis-Associated Endothelial Dysfunction
  • Caitlin Pepperell, MD, professor, Infectious Disease – Mycobacterium tuberculosis at the airway surface
  • Lixin Rui, PhD, associate professor, Hematology, Medical Oncology and Palliative Care – PRMT5 Inhibition Sensitizes B-cell Lymphoma Cells to Ferroptosis

Critical Experiment Awards

Critical Experiment Awards provide up to $10,000 for one year to support the generation of necessary preliminary data for a manuscript or grant submission. This award cycle’s recipients are:

  • Jeremy Kratz, MD, assistant professor, Hematology, Medical Oncology and Palliative Care – Mapping Myc Effectors by CUT&Tag Sequencing with Transcriptional Disruption
  • Mihaela Teodorescu, MD, MS, professor, Allergy, Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine – Characterization of inflammation and lung remodeling in the offspring of gestational intermittent hypoxia-exposed rats

Career Development Supplemental Awards

The Career Development Supplemental Awards provide up to $30,000 to support new investigators with a multi-year, extramurally funded career development award. This award cycle’s recipient is:

  • Vincent Ma, MD, assistant professor, Hematology, Medical Oncology and Palliative Care – Liquid Biomarker Study in Melanoma and Non-Melanoma Skin Cancer

Team Science Award 

Launched this year, the Team Science Award provides up to $100,000 in one-year funding to support preliminary data collection for a large, collaborative research grant led by investigators from at least two DOM divisions. 

For their project Role of Semaglutide and Resistance Exercise on Skeletal Muscle and Metabolic Health, the following faculty received the Team Science Award on the theme of Nutrition and Healthy Aging:

Next year's theme (spring 2026) will be Inflammation and Immunity.

Banner: Hilary Faust, MD, MS, assistant professor, Allergy, Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, received a General Pilot Award. Credit: Clint Thayer/Department of Medicine.
Matt Mallum, MFA