Federal Project Grant Award Summary

The University of California, San Diego received a $370,550 Project Grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) under the Biomedical Research and Research Training program (CFDA 93.859), awarded May 1, 2026, with completion targeted for February 28, 2031. This research initiative develops the Intracellular Protein Organization Landscape (IPOL), a quantitative computational framework designed to characterize cell types and states based on spatial protein organization rather than molecular composition alone. The research integrates high-resolution imaging, feature extraction, and manifold learning techniques to map cellular morphology in a novel protein organization space, addressing critical gaps in current omics-based approaches that fail to capture temporal dynamics of cell state transitions and spatiotemporal protein organization patterns.

The project addresses three primary research questions focused on quantitatively characterizing cell state transitions during processes such as epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT), revealing hidden aspects of cell type differentiation through intracellular organization, and determining whether intracellular asymmetries encode positional information during development. By advancing understanding of spatial and temporal protein organization from intracellular to tissue-level scales, this research supports NIGMS's mission to fund fundamental biomedical research that enhances understanding of biological processes and establishes foundations for advances in disease diagnostics, personalized medicine, and drug discovery.