5 research groups win 2020 MOMI Seeds pilot grants!

For the third year running, LRF MOMI CORE at UC San Diego awards pilot grants of USD 50,000 each to five research groups looking to human milk for new answers to today’s debilitating and deadly diseases.

Called MOMI Seeds grants, they are intended to help fund early-stage research and enable multidisciplinary research focused on four priority areas: Gut Health, Analytical Technologies, Social and Educational Studies, and Milk Moonshot (individualized innovations). Best said by UC San Diego, the grants help fuel the engine of discovery and serve as launchpads for getting bold ideas off the ground.

Congratulations to this year’s five recipients, who are launching the following projects:

• Dr. Drew Hall, Associate Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering – “A Bed-side Electrochemical Sensor for Point-of-care Milk Testing”

• Dr. Anthony O’Donoghue, Assistant Professor, Skaggs School of Pharmacy – “Quantification of Proteolytic Activity in Human Milk using Mass Spectrometry”
  Dr. Sydney Leibel, Assistant Professor, Department of Pediatrics – “The Role of Early Food and Environmental Exposures through Breastmilk in the Development of Atopic Conditions in a Preterm Population”

• Dr. Hiutung Chu, Assistant Professor, Department of Pathology and Dr. Mamata Sivagnanam, Associate Professor, Department of Pediatrics – “Mini Guts: Understanding the Effects of Bacteria and Human Milk on Intestinal Health”. The latter is supported by a new shared partnership with the Center for Mucosal Immunology, Allergy and Vaccine Development (cMAV) and the San Diego Digestive Diseases Research Center (SDDRC)

The MOMI Seeds pilot grant program is held at LRF MOMI CORE at the UC San Diego School of Medicine and supported in part by FLRF.

You can learn more about LRF MOMI CORE here (Larsson-Rosenquist Foundation Mother-Milk-Infant
Center of Research Excellence).

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