Brian Cleary Awarded $2.25M NIH Grant to Advance Single-Cell Gene Expression Research
Boston University’s Faculty of Computing & Data Sciences (CDS) is proud to announce that Brian Cleary, Assistant Professor of Computing & Data Sciences, Biology, and Biomedical Engineering, has secured a $2.25 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to support his groundbreaking research in computational biology. Cleary is the sole principal investigator (PI) on the five-year project, “Measuring and modeling gene expression trajectories: new computational-experimental approaches.”
The research aims to deepen understanding of how gene expression changes over time within single cells—an area central to development, tissue function, and disease progression. Cleary’s approach combines new computationally informed experimental strategies, methods to track RNA across multiple timepoints, and tools to model RNA velocity vector fields. The result will be a more systematic, quantitative understanding of how cell physiology influences “total RNA velocity.”
The project will be housed in Cleary’s Algorithmic Lens on Biology Lab, part of CDS’s growing AI for Science initiative. By uniting computation with experimental design, the lab seeks to build tools that advance both fundamental biology and biomedical applications.
“This integrative approach, blending data science, machine learning, and experimental biology, represents exactly the kind of interdisciplinary innovation that defines CDS,” said Azer Bestavros, Associate Provost for Computing & Data Sciences. “Brian’s work not only pushes the boundaries of computational biology but also exemplifies how data science can accelerate discovery in the life sciences.”
The NIH award provides $550,000 in its first year, with a total of $2.25 million committed over five years. At a time of federal funding delays, the project still earned exceptional review scores, underscoring its significance and potential impact.
In addition to his role in the Faculty of Computing & Data Sciences, Cleary is a core faculty member in the Bioinformatics Program and holds appointments in the Biology and Biomedical Engineering departments, as well as the Biological Design Center (BDC) at the Rajen Kilachand Center for Integrated Life Sciences & Engineering.