Jenn Prescher has been named a Paul G. Allen Frontiers Group Distinguished Investigator in Immunometabolism. This prestigious distinction comes with $1.5 M in funding over three years, which Jenn will share with Professor Michelle Digman in the Department of Biomolecular Engineering at UCI. As described in the press release:

“To better understand the immune system and how it dovetails with metabolism, researchers need better toolkits to track and manipulate multiple kinds of cells and molecules at once, over time, in a living animal.  Drs. Jennifer Prescher and Michelle Digman are leading the development of a new technique to shine “biological flashlights” on many different immune- and metabolism-related molecules at the same time. The technique, which they dub bioluminescent phasor, will ultimately yield a large toolkit of optical tags that can light up multiple processes or proteins in the laboratory mouse’s immune system at once. Once complete, the toolkit would be available for any research lab to use, opening new avenues for discoveries about the immune system and its relationship to our diet.”

Jenn is one of 10 new investigators announced and a total of 92 that have been appointed since the program was launched in 2010 by Paul Allen to support “creative, early-stage research projects in biology and medical research that would not otherwise be supported by traditional funding programs”. For more information, including a full list of Allen Distinguished Investigators, please see https://alleninstitute.org/what-we-do/frontiers-group/distinguished-investigators/investigators/.