W.M. Keck Foundation Expands Investment in UC Merced’s Bold Scientific Research

The W.M. Keck Foundation has awarded UC Merced nearly $1.8 million in new grants that fuel ambitious research and give early-career scientists a crucial boost at a pivotal stage of their careers.

One of the nation's most prominent private supporters of basic science, the Los Angeles-based foundation is directing $600,000 to a newly launched bridge funding initiative designed to protect faculty and doctoral researchers from disruptions in federal grant support. An additional $1.2 million will propel the laboratory research of chemistry and biochemistry Professor Andy LiWang.

Together, the awards underscore the foundation's long-standing commitment to science that embraces meaningful risk in pursuit of transformative discovery.

The bridge-funded research projects pair a faculty mentor, designated as a Keck Scholar, with a Ph.D. student mentee, designated as a Keck Fellow.

Three UC Merced faculty-student pairs are receiving bridge support, each pursuing high-risk, high-reward investigations that reflect the foundation's mission

• Molecular and cell biology Professor Ramendra Saha and doctoral candidate Andie Venegas are exploring whether the brain produces its own version of a molecule long used as a drug-delivery tool in the laboratory. Their work seeks to uncover whether the brain makes similar molecules naturally and if those molecules could represent a new mechanism of neuron communication or a blueprint for therapies targeting NMDA receptor-related disorders, including stroke and Alzheimer's disease.

• Mechanical engineering Professor Sachin Goyal and doctoral candidate Ranjan Das

• are determining how the brain controls the body through signal-travel delays between the nervous system and muscles. They aim to pinpoint exactly where those delays break down motor control, even in the absence of underlying disease, shedding light on the mechanisms behind movement disorders in conditions such as Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis and stroke.

• Bioengineering Professor Hirosha Geekiyanage and doctoral candidate Ching Ting Roy Ng are challenging the longstanding assumption that microRNAs, tiny molecules that regulate gene activity, can only function inside the cells that produce them. They are exploring whether microRNAs detected in blood and cerebrospinal fluid can enter other cells and regulate gene activity there. Confirmation would reveal a previously unknown mode of cell-to-cell communication and lay the groundwork for a new generation of RNA-based therapies.

Beyond the bridge awards, the foundation's $1.2 million grant to LiWang's lab supports an ambitious effort to understand how bacteria - and possibly many other organisms - adapt their internal processes to temperature changes.

LiWang's lab has spent years studying the circadian clock of cyanobacteria, focusing on the persistent internal cycles that perform a full revolution every 24 hours and maintain an accurate sense of local time even as cellular conditions shift.

Conducted in collaboration with CalTech bioengineering Professor Tsui-Fen Chen and University of Maryland biochemistry Professor John Orban, the new investigation builds on the lab's prior work, probing the structural, biochemical and thermodynamic machinery that makes the clockwork so reliable. The team suspects the findings could point to a previously unrecognized biological mechanism, with implications that may extend well beyond cyanobacteria.

"We are deeply grateful to the W.M. Keck Foundation for this extraordinary investment in our faculty and students," UC Merced Chancellor Juan Sánchez Muñoz said. "Support of this magnitude advances UC Merced's mission and affirms our researchers' commitment to impactful scientific inquiry that makes a difference."

The W. M. Keck Foundation was established in 1954 in Los Angeles by William Myron Keck, founder of The Superior Oil Company. One of the nation's largest philanthropic organizations, the W. M. Keck Foundation supports outstanding science, engineering and medical research. The foundation also supports undergraduate education and maintains a program in Southern California to support arts and culture, education, health and community service projects.