Rosen Center Pilot Grants

Rosen Bioengineering Center Pilot Research Grants provide up to $80,000 to support collaborative early-stage projects that require sharing of ideas, people and resources between labs. The goal of the program is to help teams develop strong preliminary data that will enhance their competitiveness for large, collaborative awards from external agencies like NIH, NSF, DoD and others.

The teams involved in this program have generated published manuscripts (with others in prep or submitted), given numerous conference presentations, submitted multiple proposals for external funding, and received follow-on awards from Federal agencies.

2025

Bridging gaps in reproductive biology: Integrating photoacoustic tomography and stem-cell embryo models to elucidate implantation failure
Awardees: Magdalena Żernicka-Goetz and Lihong Wang

Delivery of therapeutics across the blood-brain barrier byextracellular vesicles generated in vivo by mRNA-LNP vaccination
Awardees: Stephen Mayo and Viviana Gradinaru

Mechano-Genomic Interplay: Exploring the Impact of Hydrogel Confinement and Nutrient Limitation on Bacterial Fitness for Improved Environmental Biosensors
Awardees: Julie Kornfield and Dianne Newman

3D spatial mapping of microbial genetic interactions to improve modeling of marine carbon sequestration
Awardees: Rustem Ismagilov and Victoria Orphan

2024

In Vitro Synthesis for High-Throughput Engineering and Phage-Inspired Designs
Awardees: William M. Clemons and Kaihang Wang

Engineering plant-microbe communities for sustainable agriculture
Awardees: Gözde Demirer and Trevor Nolan

Elucidating Biomolecular Spin Decoherence Mechanisms
Awardees: Ryan Hadt and Doug Rees

Programming Sequential Behaviors in intact animals
Awardees: Paul Sternberg and Elizabeth Hong

2023

Engineering Protein Antibiotics
Awardees: William M. Clemons (CCE) and Stephen L. Mayo (BBE)

Recreating Microbial Phase Variation to Engineer Synthetic Microbial Communities
Awardees: Michael B. Elowitz (BBE) and Richard M. Murray (EAS)

Unlocking Endogenous RNAs as Triggers For Cell-Selective Spatiotemporal Control in Developing Embryos
Awardees: Niles A. Pierce (BBE) and Marianne Bronner (BBE)

Transcriptional and Neural Activity Signatures of Memory
Awardees: Thanos Siapas (BBE) and Long Cai (BBE)

2022

Geometric design principles for mechanical structures to control bacteria distributions
Awardees: Chiara Daraio and John Brady

Quantitative measurements toward engineering the microbiome for inducing regeneration
Awardees: Lea Goentoro and Rustem Ismagilov

Programmable Actuation of 3D Micro-architected DNA Hydrogels
Awardees: Lulu Qian and Julia Greer

2021

A genetically-encoded sensor to label interacting cells with fast temporal dynamics
Awardees: Carlos Lois and Angelike Stathopoulos

Harnessing microbial consortia from extreme environments by making them feel at home
Awardees: Julia Kornfield and Katherine Faber & Victoria Orphan

Wearable Sensor for Addictive Drug Monitoring
Awardees: Wei Gao and Henry Lester

Medical Polymers that Undergo Remotely Actuated Shape Change for Surgical Applications
Awardees: Robert Grubbs, Mikhail Shapiro and Chiara Daraio

2020

Wearable Patches for Wound and Inflammation Monitoring
Awardees: Chiara Daraio and Wei Gao

Engineering Replication-, Growth-, and Division-deficient E. coli for Safe, Stable and Efficient Function
Awardees: Richard Murray and Kaihang Wang

Engineering Species Interactions by Reprogramming Animal Glands
Awardees: Joseph Parker and Matt Thomson

Artificial Nucleic Acid Condensates for the Rapid Concentration of Bacteria from Blood
Awardees: Paul W.K. Rothemund and Rustem Ismagilov

Directed Evolution of Tailor-made Molecular Chaperones
Awardees: Shu-ou Shan and Mikhail Shapiro

Optimize Photoswitches to Support Investigation of Transcription Factor Dynamics in Vivo
Awardees: Angelike Stathopoulos and Lior Pachter

High-Resolution and Non-Perturbative Mapping for Single AAVs in Neurons and Brain Tissues by Stimulated Raman Scattering Imaging with A Minimum Deuterium Labeling Strategy
Awardees: Lu Wei and Viviana Gradinaru

Investigation Into the Use of Deep Learning to Continuous Embryo Developmental Study
Awardees: Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz and Changhuei Yang

2019

Jellyfish as inspiration for a shapeshifting material
Awardees: Rob Phillips and Lea Goentoro

Externally Triggered Polymer Microgel for Image-Guided Delivery of Biomolecules to the Intestine
Awardees: Robert Grubbs and Mikhail Shapiro

Entangled Excitation of Photodynamic Therapy Drugs
Awardees: Scott Cushing and Sarah Reisman

Spatiotemporal Control over Loss/Gain-of-Function in Developing Embryos using Conditional Guide RNAs and Viral Constructs
Awardees: Niles Pierce and Marianne Bronner

A system for specific delivery and dosage-independent control of MeCP2 expression in Rett syndrome gene therapy
Awardees: Viviana Gradinaru and Michael Elowitz

Computation microscopy correction of distortions in CLARITY bone sample fluorescence images
Awardees: Changhuei Yang and Viviana Gradinaru

Kinetics and Steady States of the de Duve Number:  Intracellular Neural Drug Distribution via Multimodal Imaging of Fluorescent Biosensors and Stimulated Raman Scattering
Awardees: Lu Wei and Henry Lester

A microrobotic system guided by photoacoustic computed tomography for targeted navigation and drug delivery in vivo
Awardees: Lihong Wang and Wei Gao

Defining the design principles of cellular information demons
Awardees: Matt Thomson and David Van Valen

2018

A smart microcapsule for continuous gut metabolic monitoring
Awardees: Wei Gao and Azita Emami

Acoustic metamaterials for non-invasive neural imaging
Awardees: Chiara Daraio and Mikhail Shapiro

Advanced sample preparation for cryo-electron microscopy with single-molecule control
Awardees: Rebecca Voorhees and Michael Roukes

Cell type specific in situ brain engineering by in vivo gene editing
Awardees: Yuki Oka and Matt Thomson

Engineering population regulation of the gut microbiome to regulate inflammation in mouse models
Awardees: Sarkis Mazmanian and Richard Murray

Bacterial argonaute proteins as novel tools for genome engineering
Awardees: Alexei Aravin and Stephen Mayo

2017

Title: Proving the possibility of multiplexed single-cell RNA sequencing of bacteria
Awardees: Rustem Ismagilov and Matt Thomson

Title: Selective killing of latently-infected CD4+ T-cells by conditionally replicating viruses that detect HIV transcripts
Awardees: Pamela Bjorkman and Niles Pierce

Title: Genetically encoded magnetoreceptors for noninvasive control of cellular function
Awardees: Mikhail Shapiro, Markus Meister and Carlos Lois

2016

Engineered viruses for large-scale targeted genetic manipulation in mice
Awardees: Carlos Lois and Viviana Gradinaru

Constraining the mechanisms of extracellular electron transfer (EET) in Pseudomonas aeruginosa biofilms by studying the effects of eDNA-binding on phenazine reactivity
Awardees: Dianne Newman and Jacqueline Barton

A Miniature, wireless and implantable intraocular pressure sensor
Awardees: Yu-Chong Tai and Azita Emami

3-Dimensional Nano-Architectures for In-Vivo Biomedical Measurements
Awardees: Julia Greer and Joel Burdick

Visualizing nicotine entry into midbrain dopaminergic neurons
Awardees: Henry Lester and Changhuei Yang

2015

Dynamic single-cell imaging of long-range physical interactions among regulatory DNA elements and target genes
Awardees: Ellen Rothenberg and Barbara Wold

Research Project Award Highlights

The Rosen Research Project Awards provide not only fantastic opportunities for collaboration between laboratories, they also provide young, upcoming researchers with leadership experience in managing a research project and mentoring undergraduate and graduate students. - Dr. Sarkis Mazmanian and Dr. Richard Murray

The work supported by the Rosen Center led to an award from the Moore Foundation to the Thomson Lab to characterize active matter systems composed of a range of different motor and filament proteins, and an award from the Rita Allen Foundation to the Van Valen Lab to study information transmission in cell signaling networks. The deep learning methods supported by the Rosen Center will be used to analyze data from both projects. – Dr. Matt Thomson and Dr. David Van Valen

This program greatly facilitated the collaboration between our labs, and together we developed successful data that led to a high-impact publication and external joint funding to continue support of our research project.  – Dr. Azita Emami and Dr. Wei Gao

Funded by the Rosen Center, our joint publication in Science Robotics was highlighted in Caltech News, Optics & Photonics News, New Scientist, the New York Post, and MSN. – Dr. Lihong Wang and Dr. Wei Gao.

Past Rosen Research Project Awards

Frances Arnold and Richard Murray "Systems Engineering of Microbial Stress Response"

John O. Dabiri for graphic design services to develop visual elements for an advanced biomechanics textbook

Chin Lin Guo "Engineering Self-assembled Tubular Systems"

Richard Murray "Forced Response Analysis of Biomolecular Circuits"

Richard Murray, iGEM Team funding to allow a group of Caltech undergraduate students to compete in the International Genetically Engineered Machine competition

Rob Phiillips "Teaching at the Interface: A Vision for Quantitative Biology"

Erik Winfree hosted the 17th International Conference on DNA Computing and Molecular Programming (DNA17) at Caltech