somor-news-nov25

Nikita Mohapatra and Joseph Morrison have been selected to receive inaugural grants from the California Initiative to Advance Precision Medicine (CIAPM). Mohapatra and Morrison are students in the School of Medicine M.D./Ph.D. program, a dual-degree pathway program for medical students interested in pursuing a career in research. They were among twelve students selected from seven California institutions. 

The UC Davis School of Medicine, UC Davis Weill School of Veterinary Medicine, UC Davis Clinical and Translational Science Center (CTSC) and UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center have selected six interdisciplinary research teams to receive 2026 Reaching Across the Causeway (RAC) Awards.

The annual program supports new collaborations that bring together investigators from both schools to tackle complex biomedical and veterinary health challenges. Each team consists of at least one PI from either the School of Medicine or the UC Davis Weill School of Veterinary Medicine and at least one co-applicant from the other school. Each winner will receive $50,000 in seed funding to generate preliminary data and position the projects for future extramural funding.

UC Davis School of Medicine has announced the recipients of its 2026 Matching Program for Purchase of Shared Equipment Awards, supporting the acquisition of research equipment that will be shared across departments and research programs to advance scientific discovery and foster collaboration across the School of Medicine.

The program provides matching funds from the School of Medicine to support multi-user equipment purchases. The program funds up to 50% of approved equipment costs, with the remaining support provided by departments or other funding sources. The initiative prioritizes equipment that advances School of Medicine research goals and expands access to critical research resources.

The K32 supports individual postdoctoral research training to broaden their scientific background and extend their potential for research in specified health-related areas. Candidates must be within 12 months before transitioning to the postdoctoral position, or within the first 2 years of their postdoctoral research experience. This award provides up to 3 years of mentored support.

Visit Individual Career Development for general guidance, policy, and program information.

School of Medicine Office of Research

Research Operations Team

• Nguyet Kong, Director of Research Operations
• Ida Shunk, Communications Specialist
• Oyunbold Jones, Financial Analyst
• Lucy Cai, Research Analyst
• Tasska Johnson, Senior Administrative Officer

In 2024, the Research Operations team took on an unusual project. The team was tasked with assisting the PIs of the HEAL-HER (Heart, BrEast and BrAin Heath Equity Research) Program with the coordination of a major symposium, the two-day April Krueger Women’s Health Symposium (AKWHS). The HEAL-HER PIs (Professors Luis Carvajal-Carmona, Diana Miglioretti, Amparo Villablanca and Rachel Whitmer) are among a number of researchers throughout the state who received funding for women’s health research from a cy pres award. The annual symposium brings together researchers from six institutions (UC Davis, UCSF, UCLA, UC San Diego, USC and Scripps Health) to share progress on the research projects funded by the award. The hosting duties rotate among the institutions and 2025 was UC Davis’ year.

Event coordination is not an unusual task for the Research Operations team. In fact, the unit is responsible for coordinating events for the School of Medicine Office of Research (such as the Research Celebration). What was different about AKWHS was the scale and scope of the project. The team was responsible for venue coordination, registration, concierge guest and VIP service and workflow management for a high visibility project. In order to meet this moment, the unit simply scaled up the strengths it routinely demonstrates in strategic planning, logistical excellence and commitment to celebrating scholarly work.

The team is dedicated to the effort to increase visibility of biomedical research at UC Davis, which is an ongoing project of the School of Medicine at large. Celebratory and high impact events are one facet of this effort. The team also collaborates with School of Medicine leadership, UC Davis Health Public Affairs and academic department leadership to advance the visibility of research opportunities and the university research enterprise. The team promotes research events, amplifies research news stories and recognizes the successful grants, publications and national accolades of School of Medicine researchers and their collaborators.

This year, that effort took on special meaning. AKWHS was held at newly opened Aggie Square, a collaborative project that represents the future of research innovation, amid the developing uncertainty about the future of national research funding. The need to connect researchers to each other and the community to research has taken on fresh urgency. It is increasingly important to ensure that UC Davis School of Medicine research is not only visible, but visibly celebrated.

Heike Wulff, professor of pharmacology, and Vladimir Yarov-Yarovoy, professor of pharmacology and membrane biology and anesthesiology and pain medicine, have published an article in the September 12 Pharmacology Review, along with three postdoc scholars in the department of pharmacology. This article reviews recent progress in developing drugs and therapies for diseases like epilepsy, depression and chronic pain. These treatments act on voltage-gated ion channels, and include newer approaches like gene therapy and antisense treatments. 

Distinguished Professor of Medicine Richard Kravitz has published a review on research regarding prescription drug marketing, appearing in the October edition of Annual Review of Public Health. The research shows that prescription drug ads influence people to ask for specific prescriptions and lead doctors to prescribe them, which raises healthcare costs. Experts suggest stronger oversight, including better funding for the FDA, temporary bans on ads for new or risky drugs, and restrictions on ads for specialized medications that should only be prescribed by experts.

The Society for Neuroscience (SfN) has honored UC Davis neuroscientist Maitreyee Wairagkar with the prestigious Peter and Patricia Gruber International Research Award in Neuroscience. This award recognizes neuroscientists with outstanding research and educational pursuit in an international setting. Wairagkar, a project scientist at the UC Davis Neuroprosthetics Lab, received the award for her groundbreaking work on an intracortical “brain-to-voice” brain-computer interface (BCI).

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