Fall 2008 Awardees (Previous pilot grant recipients)

The Penn Genome Frontiers Institute (PGFI) is pleased to announce the results of the three most recent PGFI grant competitions in the areas of cell-based screening, optical sensors, and high throughput sequencing. PGFI received many outstanding proposals and congratulates the below recipients. These innovative projects are expected to advance genomic research at Penn in areas that PGFI has identified as key for the genomics community.  

Development of cell-based screening assays

• Drs. David Roos (SAS, Biology) and Sara Cherry (SoM, Microbiology) were awarded $30,000 for their proposed work on “Genome-wide siRNA screening in human macrophages to dissect mechanisms of cell-intrinsic immunity against the protozoan parasite Toxoplasma gondii.”


• Dr. Susan Ross (SoM, Microbiology) received a $30,000 award for her proposed project entitled, “Identification of intracellular molecules required for mouse mammary tumor virus entry.”

Development of optical sensors and their biological application

• Dr. Roger Greenberg (SoM, Cancer Biology, Pathology & Laboratory Medicine) was granted a two-year award totaling $120,000 for his “Dynamic Imaging of Ubiquitination at DNA Double Strand Breaks” proposal.

Development of novel analyses and applications for high throughput sequencing

• Drs. Brian Gregory (SAS, Biology) and Li-San Wang (SoM, Pathology & Laboratory Medicine) received a two-year award totaling $120,000 for their proposed project, “Genome-wide analysis of the double-stranded RNA component of eukaryotic transcriptomes.”