11 Mar Multiple Morgridge Investigators received prestigious awards in early 2022
Morgridge Investigators Jason Cantor, Kevin Eliceiri, and Melissa Skala received award funding from the American Cancer Society, National Cancer Institute, and the National Eye Institute for projects in metabolism and biomedical imaging.
Jason Cantor was recently granted a prestigious award from the American Cancer Society to continue his investigation into conditionally essential genes in human cancer cells. Utilizing CRISPR, a revolutionary DNA-editing technology, Cantor and his team will make large-scale screens to possibly identify what genes are essential for the survival and growth of human cells.
Kevin Eliceiri was awarded a five-year, $6.7 million grant from the National Cancer Institute to lead the Center for Multiparametric Imaging of Tumor Immune Microenvironments. Eliceiri will work alongside University of Minnesota Professor Paolo Provenzano to create new immunotherapy designs and strategies by developing, testing and deploying an integrated toolkit of imaging and data analysis technologies.
Melissa Skala was awarded a grant from the National Eye Institute to develop a new imaging method for quantifying melanin in the human eye. With this two-year, $480,135 grant, Skala and her team will develop a technique called photothermal optical coherence tomography. This technique hopes to create quantitative 3D images of melanin concentration in living retinal tissues.