Three UC Davis Health researchers — a seasoned scientist and two medical students — have been awarded grants from the California Initiative to Advance Precision Medicine.
The initiative supports leading-edge biomedical and health research aimed at improving patient care and advancing health equity.
The UC Davis grant recipients are:
- Joseph Morrison, a medical student in the dual-degree M.D./Ph.D. program who is in the doctoral phase of his studies with the biomedical engineering graduate group
- Nikita Mohapatra, also an M.D./Ph.D. program student who is also working towards her Ph.D. in biomedical engineering
- Luis Carvajal-Carmona, associate vice chancellor and professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine
The initiative, which is part of the California Health & Human Services Agency, awarded grants in two different categories in recent weeks.
One category is the Representative Research Partnerships Program, which funds precision medicine researchers to work with an academic or community partner. Carvajal-Carmona under this program received $1.7 million to pair up with a Federally Qualified Health Center to support genetic testing in rural areas.
The second category is the initiative's inaugural Next-Gen Representative Research Program, which provided grants to student researchers, mostly at University of California schools. The $1.8 million fund was split among 12 students — including Morrison and Mohapatra — to cover their expenses as they step away from traditional medical school curriculum and delve into Ph.D. research projects.
In a striking coincidence, Morrison and Mohapatra are not only medical school colleagues in the same M.D./Ph.D. program — they also were classmates at Davis Senior High School.
"It is already remarkably uncommon for two students from the same high school class to go on to M.D./Ph.D. training, much less end up in the same program," said John A. Gray, director of the UC Davis School of Medicine M.D./Ph.D. program. "To now see both of them recognized with the same competitive statewide research award is pretty special."
