Researcher Stories
Get to know the PhRMA Foundation’s award recipients.
Rethinking How We Measure the Value of Obesity Treatments in the GLP-1 Era
Neeti Kulkarni, a PhD student at the University of Michigan, aims to measure how people value different obesity-related health outcomes and treatments, including GLP-1 medications.
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Building Better Gene Therapies Through Bioengineering
Kijung Kwak, a PhD student at the University of Maryland-College Park, received a 2026 PhRMA Predoctoral Fellowship in Drug Delivery for his research to develop a more effective way to deliver gene therapies to the brain for Parkinson’s disease.
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Balancing Curiosity and Patience in the Pursuit of New Treatments
Julia Bleier, PhD, of Weill Cornell Medicine is developing a new way to target a key brain receptor involved in brain disorders such as anxiety, schizophrenia, and Parkinson’s disease.
Read MoreDeveloping a Cell Therapy to Fight Infection in Vulnerable Patients
An MD-PhD student at Brown University, Melanie Martinsen is researching a potential cell-based therapy for patients vulnerable to infection due to low levels of neutrophils, infection-fighting white blood cells.
Awardee Spotlight
Pareeta Kotecha
- University of Florida
“I am grateful to receive the PhRMA Foundation award. This award provides meaningful support to international students and early-career researchers like me to advance their skills in outcomes research. I hope this research can make meaningful impact and increase surveillance in pediatric populations using GLP-1 RAs.”
Inspired by Women in Science, Driven to Fight Cancer
Shannuo Li, a PhD student in molecular pharmaceutics at the University of Utah, aims to develop new therapies for multiple myeloma, a blood cancer that often returns after treatment.