In the Face of Cuts, W.M. Keck Foundation Supports Vital Research
Six pairs of UC San Francisco faculty members and their PhD students have been awarded funding through the W. M. Keck Foundation’s inaugural Scholar-Fellow Bridge Initiative, a program designed to sustain promising early-career scientists and their trainees during the current period of uncertainty in federal research funding.
Each faculty-student pair will receive a two-year, $200,000 award to support doctoral student training and essential research expenses. The initiative reflects the Keck Foundation’s commitment to investing in high-risk, high-reward science while strengthening the pipeline of emerging scientific leaders.
The funding will support a wide range of disciplines, from neuroscience and immunology to structural biology and metabolism, advancing fundamental understanding of how biological systems function and informing future approaches to human health.
“These awards come at a crucial time for the research enterprise,” said Harold Collard, MD, UCSF’s vice chancellor for research. “We are deeply grateful to the W. M. Keck Foundation for its continued partnership and for recognizing the importance of investing in early-career investigators and their trainees. This kind of support is essential for basic scientists pursuing bold ideas that can ultimately transform our understanding of biology and disease.”
6 UCSF faculty-student pairs and their work
• Oscar Aguilar, PhD, assistant professor of microbiology and immunology, with doctoral student Joseph Cruz Moreno, for “Assessing impact of immunoreceptor tyrosine-based activation motifs in natural killer cell activation.” Their project investigates how specific signaling motifs in natural killer cell receptors regulate their development and function, including whether modifying these motifs can enhance the ability of these cells to target cancer and viral infections.
• Evan Feinberg, MD, PhD, associate professor of anatomy, with doctoral student Henry Hardart, for “From buttons to knobs: Understanding how the brain implements digital-to-analog conversion.” This research aims to uncover neural circuit mechanisms that convert “place-coded” sensory information into “rate-coded” motor outputs, testing a new model of how the brain translates discrete signals into continuous behaviors.
• Param Priya Singh, PhD, with doctoral student Nicole Suren, for “The metabolic regulation of suspended animation in vertebrates.” Their work seeks to determine how lipid droplets orchestrate reversible metabolic remodeling during suspended animation states like diapause, using killifish to identify conserved mechanisms that promote stress resistance and longevity.
• Klim Verba, PhD, with doctoral student Isaiah Hazelwood, for “Systems structural biology of ephrin receptor signalosomes in cell-derived vesicles.” This project develops a new approach to visualizing ephrin receptor signaling complexes in their native membrane environment, enabling structural characterization of protein interactions that govern cell signaling and cell fate decisions.
• Kevin Yackle, MD, PhD, assistant professor of physiology, with doctoral student Wen-Chun Lee, for “Identification of the sensory signal and motor systems that determine when to swallow.” The team aims to define how sensory neurons in the mouth and throat detect fluid volume and how this signal is integrated with the rhythms of the brainstem circuits for breathing and licking to precisely time when to swallow.
• Balyn Zaro, PhD, associate professor of pharmaceutical chemistry, with doctoral student Leah Ragosta, for “How a transcriptionally silent, non-cell autonomous regulatory mechanism shapes innate immunity.” Their research tests whether macrophages acquire functional proteins from other cells during phagocytosis to initiate new immune cell states, including tumor-associated macrophage phenotypes.
The Keck Scholar-Fellow Bridge Initiative was launched in late 2025 in response to growing instability in federal research funding, helping preserve momentum in foundational research while supporting doctoral training.
UCSF has a longstanding partnership with the W. M. Keck Foundation, which has supported innovative research across the university for many years, reinforcing a shared commitment to discovery science and the next generation of researchers.
“The Keck Foundation’s support enables scientists to continue pursuing ambitious questions at a pivotal moment,” Collard said. “It helps sustain progress in fundamental research and ensures that trainees can remain fully engaged in the scientific work that drives discovery.”
For the doctoral students supported through the initiative, the awards provide crucial continuity for their research and training within their home laboratories.
As the research landscape continues to evolve, initiatives like the Keck Scholar-Fellow Bridge Initiative play an important role in sustaining the scientific ecosystem. At UCSF, the six newly funded research teams are poised to advance discoveries that ultimately could improve lives.
About the W. M. Keck Foundation The W. M. Keck Foundation was established in 1954 in Los Angeles by William Myron Keck, founder of The Superior Oil Company. One of the nation's largest philanthropic organizations, the W. M. Keck Foundation supports outstanding science, engineering and medical research. The foundation also supports undergraduate education and maintains a program in Southern California to support arts and culture, education, health, and community service projects.