Kaufman Foundation Awards $2 Million for Fundamental Scientific Research at Pennsylvania InstitutionsFunding will support seasoned and early-career scientists while also engaging undergraduate students in research.
PITTSBURGH, Pa, Nov. 1, 2024 – The Charles E. Kaufman Foundation has announced $2 million in grants for faculty at Pennsylvania institutions conducting innovative, fundamental scientific research in the fields of biology, chemistry and physics.
The Foundation provides research funding through three programs: New Investigator grants for independent, early-career scientists; New Initiative grants for new research collaborations between established investigators; and Integrated Research-Education Grants (IREG) for institutions to provide undergraduate students opportunities to engage with investigators in novel research.
The Charles E. Kaufman Foundation reinstated the IREG program this year. It prioritizes undergraduate student engagement and focuses on cultivating the next generation of research scientists. Undergraduate students at the two institutions that received IREG funding through this year’s grantmaking will have the opportunity to engage directly with investigators through hands-on research experiences with the potential to lead to new discoveries and peer-reviewed publications. One of the IREG projects will engage students with various photography and microscopy techniques to build a computational model of the prey-capture mechanism of a carnivorous plant while the other will establish a lab course to design and test anti-microbial peptide derivatives.
The Charles E. Kaufman Foundation fund was established in 2005 in a bequest from Charles E. Kaufman, who had a long career as a chemical engineer and later as an entrepreneur and investor. Upon his death in 2010, he left $43 million to The Pittsburgh Foundation, of which $33 million was directed to supporting fundamental scientific research in chemistry, biology and physics at Pennsylvania academic institutions. Since 2013, The Charles E. Kaufman Foundation has awarded 110 grants totaling $22.4 million, including this year’s grantmaking.
The Charles E. Kaufman Foundation Scientific Advisory Board reviewed 126 inquiries from scientists at 13 institutions for the New Investigator and New Initiative awards and 25 inquiries from scientists at 25 institutions for the IREG program. The Charles E. Kaufman Foundation awarded six New Investigator awards, three New Initiative awards and two Integrated Research-Education Grants (IREG) awards. It also recommended one additional proposal to receive a grant through The Pittsburgh Foundation’s Urania E. Stott fund. The awards support research at Bryn Mawr College, Bucknell University, Carnegie Mellon University, Drexel University, Pennsylvania State University and the University of Pennsylvania.
New Investigator grants support innovative scientists in Pennsylvania as they begin their careers as newly independent investigators. The funding empowers early career scientists to address fundamental questions through novel approaches with the potential for generating transformative intellectual advances. Six New Investigator grants of $150,000 over two years were awarded to:
- Jonathan Henninger, Ph.D., principal investigator and assistant professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University, for “RNA-encoded enhancers and repressors in transcriptional control.” This research focuses on an overlooked gene expression regulation mechanism that Dr. Henninger discovered in which RNAs regulate their own production. Traditionally, it is believed that regulation of RNA production occurs primarily through the activity of specialized proteins that promote or repress gene expression. Dr. Henninger seeks to explore this newly discovered regulation mechanism by understanding how widely this mechanism is used in cells as well as the molecular basis for its function. If successful in whole or in part, it is the opinion of the Scientific Advisory Board that this project will cause a paradigm shift in how biologists think about gene expression regulation.
- Jörn Venderbos, Ph.D., principal investigator and assistant professor in the Departments of Physics and Materials Science and Engineering of Drexel University, for “Quantum altermagnetism in the topology era.” This research seeks to develop the theory behind a fundamentally new area of quantum magnetism called altermagnetism. Altermagnetism is a newly discovered third type of magnetism distinct from ferromagnetism and antiferromagnetism. Dr. Venderbos is primed to explore this new area of magnetism as he was responsible for some of the early work investigating this phenomenon. Additionally, he hopes to leverage his background in a field of physics called topology to continue to develop the theory behind how altermagnetism works. The Scientific Advisory Board believes this project will allow Dr. Venderbos to position himself as an important leader in the field of altermagnetism.
- Andrew Zahrt, Ph.D., principal investigator and assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania, for “Higher order solvent mixtures as a new optimization domain in organic chemistry.” This research aims to use machine learning to aid in the creation of better solvent mixtures that both boost reaction efficiency and are environmentally friendly. Machine learning is essential to this proposal due to the vast number of available chemicals and the unpredictable properties of chemical mixtures. The Scientific Advisory Board believes this research is likely to be transformative on an industrial scale if successful as it addresses the problem of environmentally harmful solvent chemicals commonly used in industrial organic chemistry reactions.
- Priya Sivaramakrishnan, Ph.D., principal investigator and assistant professor at the Center for Computational and Genomic Medicine at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, for “The choice between RNA and DNA - the cost of conflicts on DNA for embryonic cell fate programming.” This research seeks to understand how conflicts between DNA replication machinery and transcription machinery are prevented to avoid genome breakage and how conflicts are resolved with DNA repair machinery when genome breakage occurs. The proposal utilizes two sequencing approaches on the model organism C. elegans to map interactions between these different kinds of cellular machinery. The Scientific Advisory Board believes this research has a strong likelihood of producing significant insights into developmental disorders if successful.
- Catherine Armbruster, Ph.D., principal investigator and assistant professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University, for “Defining the role of bacterial population heterogeneity in ecological transitions.” This research utilizes Dr. Armbruster’s preliminary data and investigates the potential advantage of biofilm genetic diversity to survive transitions from one environment to another – such as moving from a water pipe into a human host. Recent work has shown that biofilms harbor elevated levels of genetic diversity, even among biofilms populated by just a single species of bacteria. This proposal aims to better understand the evolutionary consequences of this diversity. The Scientific Advisory Board found that this research addresses an important gap in the field of microbiology by focusing within the context of a biofilm, the natural state for many bacteria.
- Grayson Sipe, Ph.D., principal investigator and assistant professor in the Department of Biology at Pennsylvania State University, for “Astrocyte-neuron dynamics underlying functional sensory shifts during locomotion.” This research aims to understand the role of astrocytes, non-neuronal brain cells, in sensory processing and attention shifts during movement. This project will study mice in a virtual reality setting to see how astrocytes and neurons interact during approach behaviors (seeking rewards) and avoidance behaviors (avoiding punishments). The Scientific Advisory Board believes that this research both addresses a largely ignored question in neuroscience and could significantly enhance our understanding of brain function during goal-directed actions.
New Initiative grants support the collaboration of investigators with strong research records to develop interdisciplinary, novel approaches to address fundamental scientific questions that require expertise beyond that of any single researcher. Three New Initiative grants of $300,000 over two years are awarded to:
- Chinedum Osuji, Ph.D., principal investigator and Eduardo D. Glandt Presidential Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania, and Arnold Mathijssen, Ph.D., co-investigator and assistant professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Pennsylvania, for “Active condensate networks driven by liquid-liquid crystal phase separation.” This research seeks to understand the energy constraints at play in a new kind of liquid-liquid crystal phase separation discovered in Dr. Osuji’s lab. In this new liquid-liquid separation, a mixture can separate in a highly patterned manner to form a complex network of liquid crystal nodes and filaments. The proposal aims to understand how the properties of the mixed fluids drive this complex and unexpected behavior of pattern formation.
- Luisa Hiller, Ph.D., principal investigator and associate professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University, Phil Campbell, Ph.D., co-investigator and research professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, and Xi Ren, Ph.D., co-investigator and associate professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, for “Extracellular Vesicles: messengers between kingdoms.” This research seeks to understand the immune consequences of the uptake of extracellular vesicles from the bacterium Streptococcus pneumoniae by mammalian cells. This proposal originated from an observation by Dr. Hiller’s lab in which Streptococcus pneumoniae, a bacterium not known to use extracellular vesicles, was observed interacting with mammalian cells in this way. Dr. Hiller observed altered immune signaling within those mammalian cells after the uptake of the bacterium’s extracellular vesicles. The proposal aims to investigate whether this is a closed loop in which only mammalian cells uptake the bacterium’s extracellular vesicles or whether bacteria also uptake mammalian vesicles and alter their behavior or physiology in response.
- David Radice, Ph.D., principal investigator and assistant professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy and the Department of Astrophysics at Pennsylvania State University, and Romit Maulik, Ph.D., co-investigator and assistant professor in the Department of Information Sciences and Technology at Pennsylvania State University, for “Black hole tomography with gravitational waves and artificial intelligence.” This research aims to study the space around merging black holes by utilizing data from the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave (LIGO) observatory coupled with advanced simulations and artificial intelligence. Collisions between black holes result in ripples in space known as gravitational waves that can be detected by the right instruments, even from billions of light years away. This proposal has the goal of answering fundamental questions about black holes, gravity, and Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity. Given an expected increase in the number of gravity wave observations made by LIGO and other instruments, this is a timely proposal with potentially important implications for our understanding of the universe.
Integrated Research-Education Grants support research that directly engages undergraduate students alongside innovative scientists. Two IREG grants of $100,000 over two years are awarded to:
- Asja Radja, Ph.D., principal investigator and assistant professor in the Department of Physics at Bryn Mawr University, for “Elucidation of the prey-capturing mechanism of a carnivorous plant.” This biophysics research seeks to understand the prey-capture mechanism of the carnivorous plant Drosera. Dr. Radja selected Drosera after observing the plant’s use of three types of topology (folding, arching, and rolling) to capture insects. The proposal aims to engage undergraduate students through various photography and microscopy techniques to build a computational model describing how the plant chooses which capture mechanism to use for a particular type of prey interacting with the plant leaf in a specific location. The Scientific Advisory Board felt the scientific question itself is likely to be of general interest for students and thus serves as an enticing entry point for engaging students in authentic research.
- Sarah Smith, Ph.D., principal investigator and assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry at Bucknell University, for “Investigating the structure, function, and metal-binding properties of antimicrobial peptides in traditional and course-based research.” This research seeks to utilize cecropins, short peptides with anti-microbial properties produced by certain insects, for anti-bacterial activity and stability. The proposal seeks to engage undergraduate students by implementing a lab course in which undergraduates will learn how other scientists have made stable derivatives of cecropins, then design and test their own derivatives. The Scientific Advisory Board felt the link to the antibiotic resistance crisis would likely be motivating for student engagement, and that the project itself provides a valuable way for students to think about the relationship between structure and function in simple peptides.
The Scientific Advisory Board recommended support for one additional proposal with funding available from The Pittsburgh Foundation’s Urania E. Stott fund. This proposal strongly aligned with the fund’s focus area of outer space exploration programs and the scientific exploration of the Black Hole Theory. One Urania E. Stott grant of $150,000 over two years is awarded to:
- Niharika Sravan, Ph.D., principal investigator and assistant professor in the Department of Physics at Drexel University, for “Optimizing constraints on the equation of state of neutron stars.” This research endeavors to train an artificial intelligence program to differentiate informative astronomical events from non-informative astronomical events and recommend follow-up with only the specific telescopes most likely to add to our understanding. This seeks to address a costly issue in which currently all telescopes are notified when an interesting astronomical event occurs (for example, a star collapse) and required to shift focus. This is inefficient as many events are non-informative and disrupting normal work is expensive. The Scientific Advisory Board believes that this research has the potential not only to reduce inefficiencies in telescopic attention but to better our understanding of cosmic phenomena.