June 2026 Pilot Awardees

Wake Forest University School of Medicine

Hypothalmic Gene Expression Changes to High Fat Diet at Single Cell Resolution

Rita Cervera-Juanes, PhD

UNC Chapel Hill School of Medicine

The Role of Type 2 Diabetes in Cardiovascular and Chronic Kidney Diseases among People with HIV in the Modern Antiretroviral Era

Thibaut Davy-Mendez, PhD, MSPH

UNC Chapel Hill School of Medicine

Regulation of mitochondrial dynamics and lipid droplet formation in aortic smooth muscle cells by mitochondrial-associated actin depolymerizing factors

Christopher Mack, PhD

Alison Roland, PhD

UNC Chapel Hill School of Medicine

Peripheral correlates of impaired brain glucose transport in diet-induced diabetes

Alexander Tropsha, PhD

UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy

Mining a New Human Metabolomics Knowledgebase for Targets and Multi-Objective Lead Generation Toward the Treatment of Type 2 Diabetes

Brooke Matson, MD, PhD

UNC School of Medicine

Changes in Brain Glucose Following Oral Feeding in Type 2 Diabetes

Sandip Swain, PhD

Duke University School of Medicine

A gut to islet neural circuit