Koda-Kimble Seed Award Fuels 11 Innovative Projects
Eleven innovative projects with the potential to further the mission of the UCSF School of Pharmacy in new ways will garner a financial boost from the 2025 Mary Anne Koda-Kimble Seed Award for Innovation.
The annual award program, which is administered by the Center for Collaborative Innovation (CCI), funds $100,000 worth of projects for which there is no ready or traditional source of funding. This is the first year the award was offered in two categories: individual projects and cross-departmental collaborations.
“We were pleased to receive a number of strong applications in research, education, AI, patient care and public service,” said CCI Director Su Guo. “The new collaborative innovation category provides an opportunity for people from different departments and disciplines to work together to make a greater impact.”
Mary Anne Koda-Kimble, PharmD, served as the school’s dean from 1998 to 2012 and supported new directions in science, education and patient care. The Seed Award for Innovation honors her legacy and was announced in 2012 with a $1 million endowment from the Joseph and Vera Long Foundation.
Collaborative Innovation Projects
| Principal Investigator | Department | Proposal Title | Collaborators |
| Priyanka Bajaj | Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences | Structure-Guided Approach to Develop Therapeutic Strategies to Combat Biomolecular Condensate Formation of MET Oncofusions | Beth Winger, Clinical Pharmacy |
| Kyle Cromer | Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences | Deploying CRISR screens to enhance ex vivo red blood cell manufacturing | Brian Shy, Laboratory Medicine |
| Li Li | Pharmaceutical Chemistry | Mitigating Microglia Activation Induced by Hyperglycemic Stress in Diabetic Retinopathy | Ran Cao, Psychiatry |
| Thu Pham | Student | Financial Literacy Series for Graduate Students | Allison Wang, Associate Students of the Graduate Division, and Duncan D'Anne, Graduate Division |
| Mahendra Wagle | Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences | Discovery of New Anxiolytics Through High Content in Vivo Behavioral Screening | Matthew McCarroll, Pharmaceutical Chemistry |
Individual Innovation Projects
| Principal Investigator | Department | Proposal Title | Additional Collaborators |
| Jennifer Cocohoba | Clinical Pharmacy/California Poison Control System (CPCS) | Transforming Primary Care Through Expanded Pharmacy Services | Lisa Kroon, Clinical Pharmacy |
| Craig Ennis | Quantitative Biosciences Institute | Optimization of Genetic Engineering by Cas9 and Cas12a Through Mapping and Functional Characterization Protein-Protein Interactions | Nevan Krogan, QBI |
| John Gross | Pharmaceutical Chemistry | Mining the ReFrame Library to Unleash Innate Immunity Against Mpox | |
| Bani Tamraz | Clinical Pharmacy/CPCS | Leveraging Artificial Intelligence to Assess the Impact of Pharmacogenomics-Guided Tacrolimus Dosing on Clinical Outcomes in Transplant Patients | Jim St. Clair, Health Universe |
| Arun Wiita | Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences | Unlocking the Therapeutic Potential of BioPROTACs via TORPEDO: Targeted Oncoprotein Removal Powered by Enveloped Delivery of BioPROTACs | |
| Harry Wu | Pharmaceutical Chemistry | Chimeric Antigen Receptor Interactomics via Synapse-Specific Photocatalytic Proximity Labeling | Young-wook Jun and James Wells, Pharmaceutical Chemistry |