Chaney awarded NIH grant to support neuroscience research

Samantha Chaney

Samantha Chaney, a fourth-year Ph.D. student in the Basic Medical Sciences Graduate Program, recently received the National Institutes of Health’s Blueprint and BRAIN Initiative Diversity Specialized Predoctoral to Postdoctoral Advancement in Neuroscience (D-SPAN) Award. 

The grant is a two-phase award that facilitates completion of the doctoral dissertation and transition of talented graduate students to strong neuroscience research postdoctoral positions and will provide career development opportunities relevant to their long-term career goal of becoming independent neuroscience researchers. Known as an F99/K00 grant, it supports up to two years to complete the dissertation phase and up to four years in the postdoctoral phase.

Chaney works in the lab of Amy R. Nelson, Ph.D., professor of physiology and cell biology. She presented the preliminary findings supporting this grant at two conferences, Vasculata 2024 and the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference 2024 this summer. She will also attend a meeting for D-SPAN awardees, which will take place at the Society for Neuroscience in Chicago.

“I am so grateful to everyone who supported my D-SPAN application and excited by the new opportunities this award will bring as I transition to the next stage of my career,” Chaney said.

The award provides funds for Chaney to utilize two-photon microscopy to study how pneumonia causes neurovascular unit dysfunction over time. She will also examine differences in neurovascular unit state in pneumonia vs. non-pneumonia post-mortem human brain. 

For her postdoctoral project, she plans to use the methods learned during her Ph.D. training to investigate the mechanisms of neurovascular dysfunction at the capillary level in migraine experimental models.

See Samantha Chaney’s profile on the NIH Blueprint for Neuroscience Research site. Learn more about the D-SPAN award.