Five Mass General Brigham innovation projects seeking to improve treatment for patients with challenging diseases were awarded funding Jan. 6 through the Boston-based health system's Innovation Discovery Grants program.
Each project will receive $100,000. The Innovation Discovery Grants program has distributed more than $3.5 million in grants since its inception in 2014.
Below is an overview of the five innovation projects that received grants:
- Brain Penetrant AAV Vectors for CNS Gene Therapy: Fengfeng Bei, PhD, a principal investigator at Brigham and Women’s Hospital's neurosurgery department, is leading a project seeking to optimize adeno-associated virus gene delivery technology to strengthen its ability to treat diseases in the central nervous system.
- Commensal Papillomavirus Vaccine Development for Skin Cancer Therapy: Shawn Demehri, MD, PhD, a principal investigator at Massachusetts General Hospital's Center for Cancer Immunology and Cutaneous Biology Research, is leading a project to use an HPV vaccine strategy to treat squamous cell carcinoma.
- Harnessing Neutrophil Plasticity for the Treatment of Cancer: Tanya Mayadas, PhD, a senior scientist at Brigham and Women's Hospital's pathology department, is leading a project seeking to improve cancer treatment by activating T cells through an antigen-antibody conjugate.
- A Clinically Applicable AI Toolbox for Dystonia Diagnosis: Kristina Simonyan, MD, PhD, the director of laryngology research at Massachusetts Eye and Ear, is leading a project focusing on developing a machine learning model for automatic dystonia diagnosis.
- Addressing the Need for Early, Accurate Diagnosis of Parkinson’s Disease: A New PET Radiotracer: Anna Sromek, PhD, the associate director of McLean Hospital's medicinal chemistry laboratory, is leading a project to discover a reliable biomarker or imaging technique to accurately diagnose Parkinson’s disease earlier.