Award & Investment Overview
Two Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) researchers have been awarded $750,000 in Faculty Excellence and Innovation Awards to support exceptionally creative research with significant potential to advance human health. The awards are distributed over three years through the Silver Family Innovation Fund to accelerate discovery, enable bold scientific exploration, and strengthen translational impact.
The funding highlights OHSU’s strategy of deploying substantial internal awards to support high-risk, high-reward research that may lead to new diagnostics, therapies, or mechanistic insights into serious health conditions.
Approach & Ecosystem Context
The Faculty Excellence and Innovation Awards are a key part of OHSU’s internal research support ecosystem, celebrating groundbreaking work nominated by deans and reviewed by national scientific leaders. These awards provide multiyear resources that give investigators flexibility to pursue bold and interdisciplinary questions that might not yet be ready for traditional federal or private funding.
This model complements external grant success, enabling faculty to take creative risks, build competitive preliminary data, and engage collaborators that enhance the likelihood of long-term impact.
Innovation & Technology
The 2026 awardees tackle two distinct fronts of human health research with broad implications:
• Restoring natural pressure control in glaucoma to prevent vision loss.
• Understanding how sensory processing in the brain underlies adaptability and resilience, with implications for neurodegenerative disease mechanisms.
Both projects integrate interdisciplinary methods that span engineering, biology, genetics, and systems neuroscience.
Potential Market Applications (Project-Level Detail)
• Glaucoma pressure control therapies, Dr. Alireza Karimi (OHSU Casey Eye Institute): Advancing gene- and model-based approaches to restore the eye’s natural pressure regulation, with potential to reduce lifelong treatment burden and preserve vision for millions affected by glaucoma.
• Sensory neuroscience mechanisms for cognitive resilience, Dr. Elizabeth Moss (OHSU School of Medicine): Elucidating how the brain processes sensory information to maintain flexibility and robustness, with implications for early detection and intervention strategies in Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and related neurodegenerative disorders.
Read the Full Story:
https://news.ohsu.edu/2026/01/26/two-scientists-honored-with-grants-for-innovative-research
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Related Topics:
internal research awards, translational innovation, university innovation ecosystems, research commercialization, Faculty Excellence and Innovation Awards
