Team of scientists awarded prize for biomedical research innovation

Jennifer Munson, professor with the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC, was part of a team of researchers to win a National Institutes of Health (NIH) Complement Animal Research in Experimentation (ARIE) Challenge prize.

Their project, Population Diversity in Responses to Vaccination, was one of 20 nationwide to win the competition designed to drive innovation in research. The goal of program is to fast-track development of new lab- or computer-based research approaches to more accurately model human biology and complement — or replace — traditional biomedical research models.

The team’s vision was development of a novel in vitro model that simulates the interactions between the human brain and immune system while beginning to account for differences such as sex, age, race, and body mass.

The group includes team captain Rebecca Pompano, associate professor of chemistry and biomedical engineering at the University of Virginia; C. John Luckey, associate medical director of the Department of Pathology at the University of Virginia School of Medicine; Evangelia Bellas, associate professor of bioengineering with Temple University’s College of Engineering; Aarthi Narayanan, a biology professor at George Mason University; and Munson, who is also a member of the Department of Biomedical Engineering and Mechanics at Virginia Tech.

The group's model proposes using cells from human donors that are cultured to form tiny replicas of brain, lymph node, and fat tissue. Those would be combined in a container smaller than a credit card and connected via two loops of recirculating fluid that represent the intersection between the brain and the body and provide a platform for studying human health.

Vaccines and immunotherapies are challenging to develop. “Progress is especially slow for brain or immune diseases, as these tissues are largely inaccessible for study in humans and animal models are insufficient to replicate their complexity,” the team wrote in its submission.

Team members hope the project will provide a platform for studying and treating infections including influenza, COVID-19, and conditions such as Alzheimer’s, multiple sclerosis, and brain cancer.

Challenge prize winners will share a total prize purse of $1 million for their innovative solutions. Winning concepts will be incorporated into the Complement-AIRE program’s ongoing planning.

“The idea is to put some money into innovative things that can [benefit] multiple institutes or centers,” said Rick Woychik, director of the NIH’s National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.

Woychik mentioned the prizes during his public lecture at the research institute this past spring. He said the projects have the potential to advance our ability to do toxicity testing, evaluate new drugs, and build and develop better biomedical research tools.