Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) Assistant Professor Lucas Cheadle has been named CSHL’s first recipient of the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director’s New Innovator Award. He will use the $1.5 million grant to investigate the links between inflammation and autism spectrum disorders.
“I am extremely pleased to receive this award,” Cheadle says. “This is a unique opportunity. If we can establish a better understanding of how inflammation impacts brain development, we can build therapies to ameliorate the symptoms and improve the lives of individuals with autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders.”
Established in 2007, the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award supports early career researchers working on innovative, high-impact projects in the biomedical, behavioral, or social sciences. It is part of the NIH’s High-Risk, High-Reward Research program. “This unique cohort of scientists will transform what is known in the biological and behavioral world,” Lawrence A. Tabak, D.D.S., Ph.D., who is performing the duties of the director of NIH, says.
“I congratulate Lucas Cheadle for his recognition by the National Institutes of Health as CSHL’s first recipient of the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award,” CSHL President and CEO Bruce Stillman says. “This award underscores Lucas’ exceptional ingenuity and will support his lab’s pioneering research into the links between inflammation and autism spectrum disorders.”
Written by: Nick Wurm, Communications Specialist | wurm@cshl.edu | 516-367-5940