When learning to become a great scientist, the most important lesson might be how to collaborate. To encourage this essential skill, for the past decade, USC Stem Cell has awarded one-year challenge grants of up to $15,000 to small teams of PhD students and postdoctoral fellows launching cross-disciplinary research projects that span two or more labs.
During the 2025–2026 academic year, three teams will receive Broad Collaborative Challenge Grants for Graduate Students and Postdoctoral Fellows.
One winning project unites PhD students from two labs in the Department of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine at the Keck School of Medicine of USC: Moise Bonheur from Unmesh Jadhav’s lab and Gabriella Rita Pangilinan from Yulia Shwartz’s lab. The team will investigate how a gene called ETS1 activates a specialized immune program in “epithelial” cells that line tissues and organs, enabling them to trigger inflammation during injury and, when not properly shut down, drive chronic inflammation across tissues. Using inflammatory bowel disease and psoriasis as models, they will reveal the pivotal but largely overlooked role of epithelial cells in initiating and sustaining inflammatory responses, shifting the focus beyond immune cells, the usual targets of current therapies.
To read more, visit https://stemcell.keck.usc.edu/students-and-trainees-win-15000-collaborative-research-grants.