Office of Research announces SPARK and NIH incentive grants awardees

Purdue’s Office of Research recently announced recipients of awards for two key grant programs: SPARK (Supporting Partnering for Advanced Research teamworK) and NIH incentive grants. The SPARK and NIH incentive programs are important Purdue-led initiatives designed to foster collaborative research teams and provide targeted seed funding for institutional priority areas.

The recipients were part of the fall 2024 cohorts of award applicants.

SPARK: SPARK funding empowers Purdue-led research to achieve national prominence by providing faculty with resources to support critical research development activities enabling Purdue teams to be highly competitive in large center competitions.

Four large, interdisciplinary research projects were selected for SPARK funding. Project titles, recipient faculty members and their areas of focus include:

• “AI and data science-driven innovations for food as medicine”; faculty recipients: Arezoo Ardekani (mechanical engineering), Bruce Hamaker (food science), Thaisa Cantu-Jungles (food science) and Tzu-Wen Cross (nutrition science)

• “Dynamic intelligence in challenging environments (DICE)”; faculty recipients: Christopher Brinton (electrical and computer engineering), David Love (electrical and computer engineering), Inez Hua (civil engineering and environmental and ecological engineering) and Leifur Leifsson (aeronautics and astronautics engineering)

• “AI-assisted weak measurements in nanophotonics”; faculty recipients: Alexander Kildishev (electrical and computer engineering), Vladimir Shalaev (electrical and computer engineering) and Alexandra Boltasseva (electrical and computer engineering)

• “Digital and industrial center for economic and resilient-road vehicles technologies”; faculty recipients: Andrea Vacca (agricultural and biological engineering), Gregory Shaver (mechanical engineering), Scott Sudhoff (electrical and computer engineering), Stephan Biller (industrial engineering), Yuehwern Yih (industrial engineering) and Lizhi Shang (agricultural and biological engineering)

NIH incentive grants: This set of Purdue-led funding consists of three programs: NIH New R01 program, NIH Competing Renewal R01 program and Multiple NIH R01 award program (R01²) to support an increase in the success rates of NIH R01 applications.

Thirteen research projects were chosen to receive NIH incentive program funding. Project titles, recipient faculty members and their areas of focus include:

NIH New R01:

• “Modulation of synovial joint biology by microbial metabolites”; faculty recipient: Deva Chan (biomedical engineering)
• “Hypertension-induced impaired hypoxic cerebral vasodilation: mechanisms and implications for human brain metabolism”; ” – faculty recipient: Igor Alexander Fernandes (health and kinesiology)
• “Asymptomatic and non-invasive malaria detection with particle diffusometry”; faculty recipient: Tamara Kinzer-Ursem (biomedical engineering)
• “De-risking point-of-care HCV RNA test for community engaged design”; faculty recipient: Jacqueline Linnes (biomedical engineering)
• “Elucidating the mechanism for iron piracy by the transferrin-binding protein system in Neisseria”; faculty recipient: Nicholas Noinaj (biological sciences)
• “A microengineered biomimetic model of gut-RPE/choroid interactions in age-related macular degeneration”; faculty recipient: Sunghee Park (biomedical engineering)

Competing Renewal R01:

• “Small molecules to target the PAC1 receptor for non-opioid migraine treatment”; faculty recipient: Jianing Li (medicinal chemistry and molecular pharmacology)
• “Understanding mental and behavioral health trajectories of rural Latine adolescents: disparities, risks and resilience factors”; faculty recipient: Yumary Ruiz (public health)
• “Structure, function and inhibition of G protein-coupled receptor kinases”; faculty recipient: John Tesmer (biological sciences)

Multiple NIH R01 award program (R01²):

• “Development of adenylyl cyclase 2 inhibitors for neurological disorders”; faculty recipient: Val Watts (medicinal chemistry and molecular pharmacology)
• “Targeting circadian dysregulation to treat age-related ocular disease”; faculty recipient: Vikki Weake (biochemistry)
• “Cell free nucleic acid as a biomarker of therapy-induced inflammation in cancer chemoimmunotherapy”; faculty recipient: Yoon Yeo (industrial and molecular pharmaceutics)
• “Molecular and cellular basis of stem cell division and differentiation in haploid Ceratopteris gametophytes”; faculty recipient: Yun Zhou (botany and plant pathology)

The deadline to apply for the spring 2025 round of SPARK funding is 5 p.m. March 14.Additional information for the spring 2025 rounds of SPARK funding can be found here while details on all intramural funding opportunities can be found here.