DURHAM, N.C. — The Burroughs Wellcome Fund has selected 12 early-career researchers to receive 2026 Career Awards at the Scientific Interface (CASI), supporting scientists whose work bridges the physical, mathematical, computational, and engineering sciences with the biological sciences.
The five-year awards are designed to help researchers trained in quantitative disciplines make the critical transition from postdoctoral work to independent careers in the biological sciences. This year’s recipients are pursuing questions spanning protein design, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, cancer biology, immunology, the human microbiome, infectious disease, and sustainable biotechnology.
“The questions at the frontiers of biology increasingly require scientists who can move comfortably across traditional disciplinary boundaries,” said Tammy Collins, PhD, Program Officer at the Burroughs Wellcome Fund. “These researchers bring extraordinary quantitative and technical expertise to biological problems, but just as importantly, they bring new ways of thinking about those problems. CASI gives them the freedom and support to develop those ideas as they establish independent research programs.”
The 2026 Career Award at the Scientific Interface recipients are:
Green Ahn, PhD, University of Washington
Leveraging de novo Protein Design to Remodel The Cell-Surface Proteome
Juncal Arbelaiz, PhD, Princeton University
From Anatomical to Functional Connectomics: A Control-Theoretic Framework to Investigate How Brain Structure Relates to Brain Function and Dysfunction
Elio Challita, PhD, Harvard University
Eco-Robotics: Tracking Small Animals in Dense Habitats
Vikram Chandra, PhD, Harvard University
Distributed Neural Computation and the Evolution of the First Brains
Sarah Cherkaoui, PhD, Princeton University
Lipid Raft Interactomics: Unraveling Interaction Networks of Cancer-Associated Lipids
Neil Dalvie, PhD, Harvard University School of Medicine
Microbial Siderophores for Sustainable Mineral Processing
Shailee Jain, PhD, University of California, San Francisco
The Future of Cognitive Neuroscience: AI-Powered Models of Human Language
Soumya Kannan, PhD, Broad Institute
Uncovering Human-Microbiome Protein-Protein Interactions
Daniel Lee, PhD, University of California, Berkeley
Biophysically Editing the Cell Surface to Control the Immune Response
Mira Moufarrej, PhD, Stanford University
Decoding Cell-Free RNA Biology: From Machine Learning Prediction to in Vivo Mechanism
Cynthia Tchio, PhD, Massachusetts General Hospital
Developing Pleiotropy Pipelines to Bridge Sleep and Cardiovascular Health for Drug Repurposing
Mengzhao (Lucy) Xue, PhD, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital
Bringing Lipid Chemistry to Decipher the Host-Pathogen Tug-Of-War
Together, the projects demonstrate the breadth of scientific approaches emerging at the interface of disciplines—ranging from applying control theory to understand the relationship between brain structure and function; to using robotics to study animals in complex environments; to developing AI-powered models of human language; to applying lipid chemistry to understand interactions between pathogens and their hosts—this program supports a wide range of creative projects.
“The scientific interface is not simply where disciplines overlap; it is often where entirely new questions and approaches emerge,” Collins said. “We are excited to see how this cohort uses the perspectives and tools from their original fields to open new directions in biology.”
The Career Awards at the Scientific Interface program supports researchers with backgrounds in the physical, mathematical, computational, or engineering sciences whose work addresses biological questions. By providing support during the transition from postdoctoral training into independent faculty positions, the program seeks to foster scientists capable of bringing new approaches and perspectives to biomedical research.
About the Burroughs Wellcome Fund
The Burroughs Wellcome Fund is an independent private foundation dedicated to advancing the biomedical sciences by supporting research and education. Based in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, BWF supports scientists at pivotal stages of their careers and invests in areas where it believes private philanthropy can help catalyze scientific discovery.
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