Explore our grantees and awardees

Grant category: Research Grants

Year: 2025

Geography: USA

There are currently almost 40 million people globally living with HIV (PLWH) and they face life-threatening allergic skin reactions to medications up to 100 times more often than the general population, yet these conditions remain poorly understood – especially in those with darker skin. Elizabeth Phillips will use a biorepository with samples from more than 500 cases of severe cutaneous adverse reactions (SCAR) to create a detailed HIV skin immune atlas. Using single-cell sequencing and spatial mapping, Elizabeth Phillips and her team will develop understanding at a single cell level of how HIV alters skin immunity in both healthy and inflamed skin and its role in driving SCAR such as drug reaction with eosinophilia and systemic symptoms (DRESS) and Stevens-Johnson syndrome and toxic epidermal necrolysis (EN). They will identify new ways to diagnose, treat, or prevent SCAR. The project will improve HIV, allergy, and dermatology care while highlighting Africa’s critical role in global health innovation.

Grant category: Research Grants

Year: 2025

Geography: USA

Skin pathology in Scleroderma (SSc) involves activated and senescent myofibroblast accumulation, yet their mechanistic role remains unclear, and effective treatments are lacking. Intestinal microorganisms influence SSc pathogenesis, with altered homeostasis and function in patients. These microorganisms produce the pungent trimethylamine (TMA), which is then converted to trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO) via an enzymatic reaction catalyzed by hepatic flavin-like monooxygenase (FMO3). Together, these observations implicate FMO3 and the gut-TMA-TMAO axis in both fibrotic and vascular pathology in SSc; however, the pathogenic roles of FMO3 in SSc and its mechanism have never been investigated. Here Priyanka Verma will use human samples, cell cultures and animal models to test the hypothesis that FMO3 is an important player in SSc. Better understanding of the role of FMO3, and its regulation of the gut microbiome-TMAO axis in the pathogenesis of SSc could lead to innovative treatment strategies.

Grant category: Research Grants

Year: 2025

Geography: USA

Millions of people suffer from chronic skin diseases like psoriasis, vitiligo, and alopecia areata, which follow frustrating cycles of treatment, improvement, and relapse. These relapses occur because certain immune cells, called tissue-resident memory T cells, remain hidden in the skin even after symptoms disappear, ready to trigger inflammation again. Christoph Ellebrecht has discovered that these immune cells depend on highly efficient protein production to survive in the challenging, resource-limited skin environment. Christoph Ellebrecht and his team will investigate when and where this protein production efficiency becomes essential for these cells, how it helps them adapt to the skin, and test whether targeting this process can selectively eliminate these cells while preserving normal immune function outside of the skin. This research could lead to new treatments that provide long-lasting remission for chronic inflammatory skin diseases, significantly improving quality of life for millions of patients worldwide.

Grant category: Research Grants

Year: 2025

Geography: USA

Valerie Horsley’s project will investigate how lipids and adipocyte-derived molecules suppress fibroblast production of proteins that cause fibrosis. Valerie and her team found that adipocytes release lipids during fibrosis and that this prevents fibrosis development. Their work will identify functional mechanisms that can be targeted for future therapies for skin fibrosis, a debilitating and deadly disorder that lacks any current therapies.

Grant category: Research Grants

Year: 2025

Geography: USA

To elucidate novel mechanisms that orchestrate skin formation Alexander Marneros have focused on a genetic skin disease that manifests with scalp skin wounds at birth, aplasia cutis congenita (ACC). Alexander and his team found that the genes KCTD1 and KCTD15 are mutated in patients with ACC. These genes form a complex that inhibits the activity of AP-2 transcription factors. Inactivation of these genes in neural crest cells (NCCs), from which the mesenchymal cells of the midline cranial sutures are derived, results in ACC. The data provide evidence that keratinocyte growth factors are secreted by these mesenchymal cells to promote the formation of the overlying epidermis. A key open question is now to understand the precise pathomechanisms that are downstream of this KCTD1/KCTD15 – AP-2 signaling axis, which Alexander and the team will explore in this proposal. These experiments are expected to provide exciting new insights into how skin formation is controlled, which likely has important clinical relevance for multiple skin diseases.

Grant category: Research Grants

Year: 2025

Geography: USA

Staphylococcus aureus is the primary cause of skin infections and is a serious public health threat due to the emergence of antimicrobial-resistant strains as well as the failure of all vaccine clinical trials to date. Thus, there is an unmet need for new therapeutic strategies as alternatives to antibiotics and vaccines. Nathan Archer’s proposal aims to solve this problem by interrogating how our immune cells orchestrate protective responses against S. aureus infections. Specifically, Nathan and his team discovered that the amino acid, glutamine, is critical for host defense against S. aureus in the skin. They will use advanced “omics” approaches to understand how glutamine promotes host defense in specific immune cells in the skin using preclinical infection models as well as clinically infected skin. The goal of this study is to identify previously unrecognized immune pathways that can be targeted to augment host immunity against antimicrobial-resistant S. aureus and potentially other skin pathogens.

Grant category: Research Grants

Year: 2025

Geography: USA

Tiffany Scharschmidts seek to understand how CD4+ T cells adapt to and survive in the skin. These cells are crucial for maintaining skin health but also drive diseases like atopic dermatitis and psoriasis. Despite this, we have much still to learn about the biology of CD4+ T cells residing in skin. To fill this gap, Tiffany and her team will use advanced single-cell techniques to study the metabolism of CD4+ T cells in both mouse and human skin. Preliminary data suggest these cells rely on glycolysis, and they aim to explore this further and identify other important metabolic pathways. In the first part of the study, they will use innovative mouse models and CRISPR-Cas9 technology to pinpoint key metabolic needs and regulators. In the second part, they will extend their findings to human skin, examining CD4+ T cells in both healthy and diseased states. The goal is to uncover how metabolism influences skin immune function, which could lead to new treatments for chronic inflammatory skin diseases.

Grant category: Research Grants

Year: 2024

Geography: USA

Aydogan Ozcan’s project explores a potential alternative to the current diagnostic standard in allergic contact dermatitis (ACD) —patch testing —which has remained largely unchanged since its development over a century ago. It seeks to transform the diagnosis of ACD by developing a novel wearable sensor capable of remote monitoring and early detection. The sensor will be designed to measure changes in the skin’s optical properties, offering a more efficient, convenient, and comfortable alternative to the traditional method of patch testing. Aydogan Ozcan’s project includes the creation of skin phantom models’ representative of diverse skin tones to rigorously test the wearable sensor, followed by a phased human study.

The results of the project could enable more convenient, equitable, and cost-effective diagnosis in ACD, thereby improving patient outcomes. Additionally, this technology holds the potential to be adapted for the monitoring of other skin conditions, representing a significant advancement in the field of dermatology.

Grant category: Research Grants

Year: 2024

Geography: USA

Maria Teves’ project explores mechanisms behind formation of dermal fibrosis, which is a hallmark of several skin disorders, including systemic sclerosis (SSc). Despite the identification of various contributing factors, the precise molecular mechanisms underlying skin fibrosis in SSc remain poorly understood and there is no effective treatment. In order to uncover these mechanisms and develop new therapeutic strategies, the project focuses on primary cilia (PC), which are specialized solitary cellular organelles involved in molecular signaling. Recently, Maria Teves and her research group discovered links between altered PC to SSc pathophysiology, revealing significant alterations in PC and PC-associated gene expression in skin biopsies from SSc patients. Furthermore, it was found that profibrotic signaling can be triggered both in vivo and in vitro by the genetic ablation of PC-associated genes or by pharmacological agents that damage PC. Building on this critical evidence, the project will test the hypothesis that PC represent novel therapeutic targets for SSc skin fibrosis. A comprehensive approach is proposed to define molecular contributions of PC to the pathogenesis of skin fibrosis and assess the potential of PC-targeted therapies for mitigating fibrotic phenotypes.

Maria Teves’ experiments may lay the groundwork for advanced understanding and possibly treatment and future clinical advances for people suffering from fibrotic skin conditions.

Grant category: Research Grants

Year: 2024

Geography: USA

Anand Ganesan’s project explores the activation of the innate immune system in rosacea, a chronic skin condition which affects 5% of the world’s population. Rosacea skin has an increased number of blood vessels, which can be induced by the naturally occurring anti-microbial peptide cathelicidin, which is produced by keratinocytes in rosacea skin. While treatment targets and new pharmacotherapies for rosacea have been identified, this knowledge has not yet been translated into new rosacea therapies. RhoJ, a member of the CDC42 GTPase family, plays a critical role in angiogenesis (formation of new blood vessels) in skin and other organs, and RhoJ knockout mice have decreased number of blood vessels in the skin as compared to wild type animals. Anand Ganesan and the research group has discovered a new class of small molecules that inhibit CDC42 GTPase signaling, which prevents vessel accumulation in the skin and colon through a RhoJ-dependent mechanism and also blocks the vascularization of human organoids. Anand Ganesan’s project couples’ single cell and spatial transcriptomics approaches (i.e., analyses of how genes are expressed in individual cells as well as throughout a tissue) with advanced bioinformatics to identify vessel inducing signals in tissue. The research plan includes 1) coupling single cell and spatial transcriptomics with advanced bioinformatics to identify rosacea inducing signals; 2) quantifying vascular changes in rosacea in mice and human model systems; and 3) testing the efficacy of CDC42 inhibitors at blocking cathelicidin-induced angiogenesis.

The project aims to identify new drug targets and test the efficacy of new treatments for rosacea.