Researcher Stories
Get to know the PhRMA Foundation’s award recipients.
Improving Existing Antibiotics to Fight Tuberculosis
Mary Nantongo, a PhD student at Case Western Reserve University, aims to develop therapeutics to better manage drug-resistant tuberculosis, which has a tremendous impact on families and communities in her home country of Uganda.
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Studying a Protein That Could Help Protect and Restore Vision
Bushra Zaman, a PhD student at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, is researching how a specific protein called clusterin can help the eye recover after sudden injury.
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Applying Lessons From Parenthood to Drug Discovery Research
Kan Li, a PhD candidate at Rutgers University, is researching therapeutic targets for enteroviruses, which can cause illnesses ranging from cold-like symptoms to serious neurological complications, particularly in children.
Watch NowReprogramming Immune Cells From Cancer Allies to Cancer Fighters
Dr. Anastasia Varanko, a postdoctoral trainee at Vanderbilt University, aims to make existing immunotherapies more effective to expand their benefit to a broader range of patients and cancer types.
Awardee Spotlight
Jessica White, MS
- Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
“Kinase inhibitors are usually only tested in patient subgroups with recurrent mutations. This fellowship enables me to combine sequencing data and machine learning to assess the druggability of sporadic, collectively prevalent missense mutant kinases.”
Combining Immunotherapy and Chemotherapy for Better Cancer Treatment
Kaitlyn Pierpont, a PhD student at Weill Cornell Medicine, is researching how to improve cancer treatment by combining two therapies: chemotherapy and chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy.