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Beckman Institute Neuro Mini-Grants 2026

A generous gift from Dr. Marty Nemko, educator and author, has made it possible to fund seven grants to support early-career Caltech researchers. The Beckman Institute Neuro Mini-Grant funds independent projects for graduate students and postdoctoral researchers in BBE and CCE. Eligible candidates must demonstrate that their proposed work is a novel investigation of a fundamental question in neuroscience; does not overlap with their primary research agenda; and makes use of one or more of Beckman Institute's Resource Centers and/or Facilities.

Seven awardees were selected from a highly competitive field of 21 applicants. Their projects range from explorations of neural pathways involved in metabolic or emotional states, to mechanisms implicated in Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases, to developing new visualization methods and a novel AI tool for interpreting MRI scans of Alzheimer's patients. The awardees' work will also utilize tools and resources available in the BI's Biological Imaging Facility, Protein Expression Center, CLOVER Center, and the Bioinformatics Resource Center. Research for these projects will be conducted over summer and fall 2026.

The 2026 BI Neuro Mini-Grant recipients are:

  • Lynn Fang (graduate student, Cai Lab, BBE): "First responders: Mapping transcriptional failure of memory encoding in Alzheimer's disease"
  • Ahyoung Kim (postdoc, Shapiro Lab, CCE): "Remote Control of Neuronal Calcium-to-Gene Signaling with Piezo-Nanotransducers"
  • Jineun Kim (postdoc, Anderson Lab, BBE): "Somatic Components of Emotion: Mapping Body-to-Brain Feedback in the Fight-or-Flight Response"
  • Gustave Li (graduate student, Stathopoulos Lab, BBE): "Investigating the Cell-Autonomous Functions of Pyramus in T4 Neuron Axon Pathfinding and Synaptogenesis During Drosophila Pupal Development"
  • Ann Popovici (graduate student, Gradinaru Lab, BBE): "Single-Organelle Resolution Mapping of Lysosomal Acidification States in TH⁺ Neurons During Early α-Synuclein Pathology"
  • Joseph Rich (graduate student, Pachter Lab, BBE): "Describing the Directions a Brain Model Learns: A Variance-Attribution Metric for Interpretable Neuro-AI"
  • Honami Tanaka (graduate student, Mazmanian Lab, BBE): "Mapping the Neural Substrates of Microbiome-Driven Social Behavior via Whole-Brain c-fos imaging"