GSI 2025 Pilot Grant Competition: Winners

The Genome Science Institute is excited to announce the four recipients of the 2025 Pilot Grant Competition. This year’s program focused exclusively on projects using the Illumina/Fluent BioSciences Single-Cell RNAseq platform through the BUCAMED Single Cell Sequencing Core.

Each awarded project will receive support for up to 8 samples, targeting 10,000 cells per sample. Funding was open to BU research faculty from both the Medical and Charles River campuses, with the goal of advancing single-cell genomics research across the university.

1. “Cytoskeletal control of oligodendrocyte biology in myelin assembly, maintenance and function”
Ume Beffert, Ph.D.– Department of Biology and Angela Ho, Ph.D. – Department of Biology

2. “Neurobiological mechanisms of horned beetle behavioral plasticity using single-cell RNA-seq”
Sofia Casasa, Ph.D, – Department of Biology

3. “The goal of this proposal is to develop a novel in vitro human organoid model system of telomerase dysfunction to study the epithelial intrinsic perturbations at the inception of pulmonary fibrosis”
Jonathan Chang, MD – Department of Pulmonary, Allergy, Sleep & Critical Care Medicine; Kostas Alysandratos, MD, PhD – Department of Medicine; Darrell Kotton, MD – Department of Pulmonary, Allergy, Sleep & Critical Care Medicine

4. “snRNA-seq of Environmental Chemical and High Fat Diet-exposed Liver Background and Rationale”
David Waxman, Ph.D. – Department of Biology

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