Gwendolyn Beacham, PhD, Receives Jane Coffin Childs Fund Fellowship

Postdoctoral fellow Gwendolyn Beacham, PhD, has been selected as a 2023 fellow by the Jane Coffin Childs Fund for Medical Research (JCC). Twenty-seven researchers across a broad range of biomedical disciplines were chosen for fellowships based on their doctoral research, innovative research plans and their chosen scientific mentors.

Beacham works in the labs of Elliott Hagedorn, PhD and Christopher Chen, MD, PhD, researching the mechanisms underlying endothelial transmigration. The endothelium is a single-cell layer that lines all blood vessels. Based on preliminary data found using the zebrafish model system, Beacham believes that endocytosis, a process by which cells absorb external material by engulfing it with their cell membrane, is important for controlling the selective transmigration of circulating cells across the endothelium and into extravascular tissues.

This research may help improve the efficiencies of cancer therapies that rely on endothelial transmigration, such as bone marrow transplants and engineered CAR T-cells.

“The Jane Coffin Childs Fund has been successful since its launch in catalyzing the careers of scientific leaders who have gone on to make major scientific contributions that have advanced human health and fundamental science” said Sue Biggins, PhD, chair of JCC’s scientific advisory board.

“It is a point of pride to see the impact and outcomes that the funding of nearly 1,700 postdoctoral fellows has produced since 1944,” said Biggins.

Fellows are funded for a three-year term and receive flexible stipend support. As it has in the past, JCC partnered with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Merck Research Laboratories with over $7M committed by the Jane Coffin Childs Fund and its partners to the 2023 cohort of fellowships.