BSF Principal Investigator Mark D. Johnson, M.D., Ph.D. Receives Prestigious NIH Award
Brain Science Foundation Scholar, Mark D. Johnson, M.D., Ph.D. is among a select group of researchers who have been chosen by the director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to receive a prestigious New Innovator Award.  Dr. Johnson was one of only 29 recipients to receive this award, which was announced on September 19th at the Third Annual NIH Director’s Pioneer Award Symposium.  More than 2,100 investigators applied for the new grant which will provide recipients with 1.5 million dollars over a period of five years. 

Much like the Brain Science Foundation’s approach to seeding new and promising research projects, The New Innovator Competition aims to support investigators pursuing research that is dynamic and cutting-edge. The New Innovator Award is designed to fund investigators who propose highly innovative research projects that have significant potential to dramatically impact the biomedical or behavioral sciences, but which due to their high risk might not otherwise receive funding through traditional funding processes.

Dr. Johnson is a neurosurgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, where he has a clinical focus on neurosurgical oncology and the neurosurgical management of pain. He also maintains his own basic science research laboratory in the Surgical Neuro-Oncology Laboratory at Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School. Dr. Johnson received this national honor for his innovative project titled MicroRNA Biogenesis and the Cancer Proteome. Dr. Johnson’s research will explore ways in which defects in microRNA biogenesis decrease cancer survivorship. For this study Dr. Johnson will use mass spectrometry proteomics, genomics, and clinical variables to analyze the microRNA, mRNA and DNA of human Glioblastoma brain tumors.

The Brain Science Foundation congratulates Dr. Johnson on this tremendous accomplishment.