Researcher Stories
Get to know the PhRMA Foundation’s award recipients.
From Center Stage to the Neuroscience Lab
Abigail Schwarz, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, is researching a psychedelic-like compound for the treatment of chronic pain and opioid use disorder.
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Striking the Spark to Advance Cancer Drug Delivery
Bojing Jiang, a PhD student at Washington University in St. Louis, received a 2026 PhRMA Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship in Drug Delivery for her work developing precise and safe drug-based delivery platforms for cancer treatment.
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A Philosophy of ‘Good People, Good Science’
Mark Milner, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Michigan, is researching a potential novel therapeutic target for multiple sclerosis to protect against progressive neurodegeneration and dysfunction.
Read MoreDesigning a ‘Superhero Bacteria’ to Relieve Gut Stress
Gracelyn Richmond, a fifth-year PhD candidate at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, aims to create therapeutic products that could improve gastrointestinal symptoms by leveraging bacterial interactions in the gut microbiome.
Awardee Spotlight
Nino Isakadze, MD, MHS
- Johns Hopkins University
“Receiving the PhRMA Foundation grant will allow us to generate robust evidence to support the use of digital health technologies to enable risk factor modification for diverse patients with Afib and bridge the critical gap in Afib management. I am confident that digital health tools have tremendous potential to reach people where they are and transform health care delivery.”
Developing a Platform for Personalized Cancer Vaccines
Xinyi Tu, a PhD student at Arizona State University, is developing a cancer vaccine platform that uses nanoparticles to deliver vaccine ingredients to the immune system.