The National Institutes of Health has approved a $2.5 million grant for the NC State College of Veterinary Medicine to continue the work of its Comparative Molecular Medicine Training Program, which awards fellowships to Ph.D. students in NC State University’s Comparative Medicine Institute.

Since NIH first funded the program in 2021, more than 20 students have benefited from the specialized training that prepares them to lead complex interdisciplinary biomedical research teams. With the new funding renewal, six more fellows have started their training journeys this month. 

NC State already houses the Young Scholars Program and the Summer Interdisciplinary Research Initiative for undergraduate scientists through the institute, whose mission is to develop teams that can translate basic research and scientific discovery into clinical or societal applications to improve the health of animals and humans.

“This renewal is a vote of confidence in something we believe in deeply: that the best biomedical scientists aren’t trained in isolation, but through collaborations across disciplines and across mentors,” said Dr. Caroline Laplante, associate professor of quantitative and computational biology and one of three principal investigators on the grant. “With this new round of funding, we can continue to provide our Ph.D. students the training, mentorship and community they need to lead the complex, team-based research that modern biomedical research demands.”

Dr. Jorge Piedrahita, founding director of the Comparative Medicine Institute and a professor in the Department of Molecular Biomedical Sciences, and Dr. April Kedrowicz, an associate professor of communication in the college’s Department of Clinical Sciences, also are principal investigators.

The Comparative Molecular Medicine Training Program offers Ph.D. students a nearly $30,000 annual stipend plus full tuition and benefits. They also get access to more than 40 CMI faculty mentors across four graduate programs — Comparative Biomedical Sciences, Biomedical Engineering, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, and Biomathematics — as well as to collaborators at University of North Carolina and Duke University Medical Schools.

‘A Crucial Pathway’

The participants are recommended by the Program Selections Committee and selected for two-year fellowships based on academic performance and potential in interdisciplinary biomedical research. The degree includes a minor in Teamwork in Interdisciplinary Biomedical Research. 

Over two years, participants learn how to develop responsible, rigorous interdisciplinary research using theoretical and methodological aspects of several disciplines within comparative molecular medicine. They also receive training in becoming responsible team scientists and leaders, as demonstrated by their development of team-science competencies. 

Alexis Johnson, who earned her undergraduate degree in microbiology at NC State, is one of the six Ph.D. students awarded fellowships in the Comparative Molecular Medicine Training Program since the grant was renewed. 

“This program provides a crucial pathway to careers in industry, where interdisciplinary teams work together to solve biological problems,” she said. “Getting a fellowship like this opens up networks that reinforce this approach to science and that will improve my output in my Ph.D. program, catalyze my career trajectory and progress molecular medicine as a whole.”

Johnson will be working with Dr. Amit Sharma, associate professor of virology in the College of Veterinary Medicine, on developing innovative approaches to study host-virus interactions that regulate HIV entry and membrane fusion. 

“Biology scaled down is chemistry, chemistry scaled down is physics and, to resolve biological molecular mechanisms, you need an approach that considers all three,” she said. “It isn’t practical for one individual or one lab to tackle these approaches. This highlights the importance of interdisciplinary team science. Collaborative science is the keystone of molecular medicine.”

Today’s Translational Science

Alexandra Dwulit, who completed the two-year fellowship, is finishing her Ph.D. in comparative biomedical sciences with Dr. Matthew Breen at NC State and Dr. Rajendra A. Morey, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Duke University, as advisers. She said the fellowship allowed her to develop a distinctive research niche that bridges disciplines and species, providing a strong foundation for a career in comparative neuroscience and behavioral genetics.

“The CMMTP training program gave me the flexibility to develop a truly interdisciplinary, interest-driven project across two institutions with mentors who are leaders in their respective fields,” Dwulit said. “With this training grant, I have been able to pursue an integrative research program combining behavioral genetics, psychiatry, neuroimaging and veterinary medicine to better understand neuropsychiatric traits through comparative research in both humans and dogs.”

Dr. Grant Scull, who earned his Ph.D. in biomedical engineering at NC State in 2024, was one of the first fellows to benefit from the grant, part of the NIH T32 program. Hearing that the program had been renewed and that other students will continue to benefit was good news for him.

“My time in the program drove home for me the importance of being a team player and building a network of diverse backgrounds and skillsets and gave me the tools and mindset required to thrive in today’s era of translational science,” he said. “The biomedical questions being asked and hypotheses being tested today have largely exited the basic science realm and have a significant translational element, which is a hurdle that many individual labs struggle to overcome alone.”