Toulmin Pilot Projects Selected

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(August 29, 2024) — A panel of peers at GUMC, chaired by Anna T. Riegel, PhD, vice president for biomedical graduate education and research, has selected seven Toulmin Pilot Projects to receive funding in 2025. The awards support innovative research projects that have significant potential to attract additional funding in this competitive research environment.

Toulmin Pilot Projects are supported through the philanthropy of Harry and Virginia Toulmin. The Toulmins established the Warwick Evans and Mary Mason Washington Evans Medical Research Endowment in honor of Harry Toulmin’s grandparents. Warwick Evans was the first graduate of Georgetown University Medical School.

This year’s recipients of the Toulmin Pilot Projects are:

  • Miriam Jacobs, MD: Enhancing natural killer cell activity against triple negative breast cancer
  • Mark P. Burns, PhD: Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) as an intervention to promote cognitive recovery following high frequency head impact
  • Stella Alimperti, PhD: Investigating the role of biomechanical cues in diabetic microvasculature.
  • Ayesha N. Shajahan-Haq, PhD: Application of a novel MRI technique to detect therapy resistant ER+ breast cancer
  • Ken Kellar, PhD: Aging-associated impairment of long-term potentiation (LTP) and its rescue: implications for age-associated cognitive decline
  • Italo Mocchetti, PhD: HIV-associated neurocognitive disorder and oligodendrocytes
  • Alexey Ostroumov, PhD: Understanding the mechanisms of patterned neural activity in Parkinson’s disease
  • Chris Albanese, PhD: Thymosin b4 as a potential medulloblastoma radiosensitizer
  • Ian Gallicano, PhD: Using cardiac targeting peptide to deliver miRNA for molecular reversal of heart failure