{"id":156589,"date":"2024-10-09T10:23:39","date_gmt":"2024-10-09T14:23:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/?p=156589"},"modified":"2024-10-10T16:15:39","modified_gmt":"2024-10-10T20:15:39","slug":"green-wins-nih-directors-transformative-research-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/2024\/10\/09\/green-wins-nih-directors-transformative-research-award\/","title":{"rendered":"Green Wins NIH Director’s Transformative Research Award"},"content":{"rendered":"

Biomedical engineer’s high-risk project could lead to improved cancer treatments and other therapies<\/strong><\/h3>\n

By Andrew Thurston<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Before a new car rolls onto the road, engineers measure how it reacts to different forces, from passengers plonking into the seats to jarring collisions. Understanding the impact of these forces provides essential insights into the durability and effectiveness of the vehicle and its components\u2014an approach taken for just about every new product, from cell phones to simple bottle flip tops.<\/p>\n

Now, Boston University engineer Alexander A. Green<\/a> wants to do the same kind of force measurement for biological cells, with the goal of one day improving cancer therapies. He hopes that by tracking the forces involved when cells interact with one another, like in cell-based cancer therapies, he can better control their behavior and pave the way for more potent disease treatments. It\u2019s an out-there, novel idea\u2014and it could fizzle or it could change lives. But Green\u2019s chances of success have just been given a major boost.<\/p>\n

A BU College of Engineering associate professor of biomedical engineering<\/a>, Green has been named a winner of the 2024 National Institutes of Health Director\u2019s Transformative Research Award,<\/a> given to researchers \u201cproposing transformative projects that are inherently risky and untested but have the potential to create or overturn fundamental paradigms and may require very large budgets.\u201d<\/p>\n

Green is sharing the award\u2019s $7.2 million funding with two researchers from Yale University, Julien Berro and Xiaolei Su, and he says their proposed cell forces project would typically be a tough one to win backing for\u2014all promise with, so far, little proof that it\u2019ll work.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a really important funding mechanism,\u201d Green says of the award. \u201cThis kind of blue-sky research is super important\u2014we\u2019re pushing the frontiers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read the full story at BU’s<\/em> The Brink<\/a>.<\/h3>\n

Photo by Cydney Scott<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cThis kind of blue-sky research is super important\u2014we\u2019re pushing the frontiers.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2662,"featured_media":156590,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[236,257,1074,899],"tags":[1038],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156589"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156589"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156589\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":156616,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156589\/revisions\/156616"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/156590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}