Castiglione and Ingolia win Keck Foundation grants

Gianni Castiglione

Gianni Castiglione, with several colleagues at Vanderbilt University, and Nicholas Ingolia received at least $1 million from the W.M. Keck Foundation to fund their research. The foundation supports projects that are distinctive and novel in their approach, as well as high-risk with the potential for transformative impact.

Castiglione is an assistant professor of biological sciences, ophthalmology and visual sciences at VU and a member of Vanderbilt’s Evolutionary Studies Initiative. His lab explores new directions in aging research by collaborating with experts from a wide range of disciplines across the Vanderbilt campus. Castiglione’s grant will help further research in reverse engineering the life span of birds. He hopes to uncover biological mechanisms behind exceptional longevity that could one day help safely extend the lives of humans.

Nicholas Ingolia

“We’re drawing on these different disciplines, and that’s promoted here, rather than trying to fit into a box,” he said in a VU press release.

Ingolia is a professor of molecular and cell biology at the University of California, Berkeley. His lab studies how cells control the translation and stability of messenger RNA in the cytosol, and how this regulation fulfills important biological functions. Ingolia’s grant will be used toward the study of systematic testing of sequence–function relationships in intrinsically disordered proteins.