Research flourishes despite the immense challenges of the pandemic.
WashU Medicine reaches new heights as it climbs to No. 3 in NIH research funding (Links to an external site)

Research flourishes despite the immense challenges of the pandemic.
Valeria Cavalli, PhD, and Guoyan Zhao, PhD, are among the collaborators at WashU participating in the Integrated Research Center for Human Pain Tissues (INTERCEPT) Pain Center at the School of Medicine.
The McDonnell Center for Systems Neuroscience Small Grants Program will provide $100,000 over two years.
The $2-million grant will go to identifying the circuits and computations responsible for integrating novelty- and reward-seeking in behaviors.
David C. Van Essen, PhD, the Alumni Endowed Professor of Neuroscience and Matthew F. Glasser, MD, PhD, an instructor in radiology at the university’s Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology, will create and analyze brain maps of individual people and nonhuman primates to determine the kinds of cells that comprise each brain area using data collected from people and animals scanned at collaborating sites.
The collaborative effort to study OCD is funded by a $15.6 million award from the National Institute of Mental Health.
Holy’s research will investigate the structural features that modulate odorant receptor-ligand interactions in the vomeronasal system, which is responsible for pheromone sensing.
Li’s research will investigate the link between maternal immune activation during fetal development and the development of neurological disorders.
The project aims to answer a fundamental question in neuroscience: how do olfactory cues direct behavior?
The Zhao Lab is grateful for ICTS, GTAC@MGI, Knight ADRC, and the Movement Disorders Center for their generous support.