Marcelo Vargas, a postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Jeff Johnson, professor in the Pharmaceutical Sciences Division, was awarded a Pathway to Independence Award (K99/R00) from the NIH.

The initial award (K99) provides up to two years of mentored, postdoctoral support. The second phase (R00) provides up to three years of independent research support and is activated when the awardee accepts a full time tenure track (or equivalent) faculty position. The grant is focused on understanding how oxidative stress contributes to Lou Gehrig’s disease and if attenuating this production of these reactive oxygen species leads to increased lifespan in mouse models of the disease.