Shannon Martello, a graduate student in Dr. Marjan Rafat’s lab, has been awarded an NIH F31 predoctoral fellowship, a prestigious award designed to support promising doctoral candidates in biomedical and behavioral research. F31 fellowships provide stipend support and resources to help students complete their dissertation research and develop into independent investigators.
Martello credits VINSE Pilot Funding with helping her secure the award. “The pilot award was instrumental in optimizing the fabrication protocol for our breast-mimetic organ-on-a-chip devices,” she explained. “These devices will be used to model immune cell interactions with the breast tissue that we observed in vivo, enabling us to visualize and probe these interactions on a molecular level.”
Her work relies on VINSE’s nanofabrication facilities, where she fabricates the custom microfluidic devices needed for her experiments. The VINSE cleanroom provides the advanced tools and technical support required for photolithography, soft lithography, and other processes essential to device development.
VINSE Director Sharon Weiss highlighted the significance of this support, “Shannon’s successful NIH fellowship is a wonderful example demonstrating how early-stage pilot funding and access to VINSE facilities can accelerate research outcomes and strengthen grant proposals.”
The award reflects the impact of VINSE’s Pilot Funding program, which provides small-scale financial support to help researchers test new ideas, develop capabilities, and position themselves for larger external funding opportunities.