2024 ND-ACES Emerging Areas Seed Awards announced

ND EPSCoR is pleased to announce the recipients of this year's ND-ACES Emerging Areas Seed Awards. This award seeks to provide emerging areas seed awards of up to $40,000 each in direct costs to researchers at institutions collaborating on the NSF EPSCoR Track-1 award New Discoveries in the Advanced Interface of Computation, Engineering, and Science (ND-ACES) in areas of North Dakota's broad and emerging biosciences ecosystem with potential for high impact and transformation.

This year's awardees are:

• A patient-centered approach to in vitro tumor modeling, Dr. Katie Reindl, NDSU

• Biodegradable and Biocompatible Drug-Loading Polymer Gels Potentiating Long-Term Sustained Release of Anticancer Drugs for Precise Cancer Treatment, Dr. Binglin Sui, UND

• Developing protocols and tools to visualize membrane proteins involved in environmental signaling by CryoEM.eria, Dr. Christopher Colbert, NDSU

• Evaluating the crosstalk between cancer cell RAGE and the immune microenvironment in melanoma tumor-like 3D spheroid co-cultures, Dr. Estelle Leclerc, NDSU

• Monitoring stress induced biomolecular condensates in 2D and 3D cell cultures, Dr. Stefan Vetter, NDSU

• Nanoparticle-Assisted Drug Delivery to Rejuvenate Aged Muscle Stem Cell Function, Susan Eliazer, UND

• Next-Generation Microfluidic Devices for Accurate and Rapid Biomarker Separation from Whole Blood, Dr. Yongki Choi, NDSU