Penn researchers honored with NIH Director’s Awards for bold, high-impact research

University of Pennsylvania researchers have received prestigious awards from the National Institutes of Health Director’s High-Risk, High-Reward Research program, which supports exceptionally creative scientists pursuing bold ideas with the potential for broad impact.

Michael Z. Levy, PhD, a professor of Epidemiology in the Perelman School of Medicine, received a Pioneer Award to unite architecture and epidemiology in the design of healthier homes. The Pioneer Award supports scientists opening new research directions to address major challenges in biomedical, social science, and behavioral research.

Adam J. Stevens, PhD, an assistant professor of Cancer Biology, received a New Innovator Award. Stevens uses synthetic biology to study the molecular logic of how cells form and maintain tissues. The New Innovator Award supports unusually creative early-career investigators pursuing innovative, high-impact research.

Designing homes with health in mind

The Pioneer Award will support a three-part effort to understand how the design and construction of homes shape the organisms and exposures that can affect human health. The team will first compare the microbial, plant, and animal life found in new, curvilinear 3D-printed homes with that of traditionally built homes in similar environments.

Researchers will then combine architectural models of airflow with epidemiological and ecological models to estimate how housing improvements could reduce health risks linked to poor airflow, harmful microbes, and disease-carrying pests, and identify designs that discourage organisms that threaten human health. Finally, in collaboration with Dorit Aviv, PhD, in Penn’s Stuart Weitzman School of Design, the team will test architectural interventions in the laboratory and in the field, with the goal of creating housing forms that reduce harmful exposures in the home.

“3D printing has unleashed a Cambrian explosion of designs, ideas and materials, to tackle housing challenges. These are likely to recede as they wash over market forces,” Levy said. “It is critical to ensure that the potentially healthier forms of homes, and especially the more energy efficient and climate resilient designs, are not lost. It is equally critical that potential harms and externalities of new architectures and materials are not ignored.”

Improving disease modeling

“The goal of my team’s research is to create better tools for disease modeling and to advance cell therapies in cancer treatment and regenerative medicine,” Stevens said. His project aims to overcome some of the challenges associated with engineering human tissues to create organoids, which researchers can use to study how diseases develop and respond to treatment.

Stevens will use the grant to develop new tools to control how complex multicellular ensembles are built, with the goal of precisely constructing synthetic tissues that can model and treat disease. To do this, the lab will engineer cell adhesion molecules, the surface proteins that determine how cells stick to each other and to their environment.

Part of the NIH Common Fund’s High-Risk, High-Reward Research program, the Director’s Awards are designed to accelerate discovery by supporting unconventional ideas with the potential to transform broad areas of research. The program includes the Pioneer, New Innovator, Transformative Research, and Early Independence awards.

The latest honors build on a longstanding history of recognition for Penn Medicine researchers through the NIH Director’s High-Risk, High-Reward Research Program. Penn researchers have received multiple NIH Director’s awards in recent years, supporting innovative research across areas including cancer, neuroscience, genetics, immunology, and precision medicine.