The Kenneth Rainin Foundation has awarded over $4 million through our Innovator Awards. This grant program supports individual and collaborative research that advances our understanding of Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) and has the potential to improve the lives of IBD patients.
Finding a cure for this complex disease relies on having a diverse pipeline of scientists with novel, high-risk ideas. Early career researchers are essential to that pipeline, introducing technologies and directions that invigorate the science. In today’s highly competitive funding landscape, we remain committed to ensuring these investigators and their promising work have the support needed to reach their full potential.
“Early-stage research and unique perspectives can have a profound impact on the prediction, prevention and treatment of IBD,” said Laura Wilson, PhD, Director, Health Strategy & Ventures. “We’re thrilled that 70% of this year’s Innovator Awards grantees are early career investigators who bring fresh, innovative thinking to the field.”
The 2025 Innovator Awards Grantees
This year’s funded projects explore new ways to reduce inflammation and restore gut health, targeted treatment options with fewer side effects and the chance for lasting healing, and the gut-brain connection. The 2025 Innovator Awards grantees include:
- Rafael Czepielewski, PhD, Augusta University Research Institute
- Miguel Jimenez, PhD, and Liangliang Hao, PhD, Boston University
- Jose Ordovas-Montanes, PhD, Boston Children’s Hospital
- Marco Jost, PhD, Harvard University
- Ilana Brito, PhD, Weill Cornell Medicine
- Julie Magarian Blander, PhD, Weill Cornell Medicine
- Dan Littman, MD, PhD, New York University Grossman School of Medicine, and Jeremiah Faith, PhD, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
- Ankit Malik, PhD, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
- Xin Li, PhD, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
- Emilia Favuzzi, PhD, and Evelyn Lake, PhD, Yale University
This award will support studies of epithelial-T cell crosstalk with the potential to reveal innovative therapeutic strategies for treatment-refractory IBD.
Ankit Malik, PhD, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Continued Support For Innovator Awards Grantees
Researchers who demonstrate significant progress are eligible for up to two years of additional support. The Foundation awarded continued support to 17 Innovator Awards grantees from 2023 and 2024.
A number of grantees are investigating further into the underlying mechanisms of IBD. This includes many studies centered around understanding fibrosis and the microbiome, focusing on the neurological connection in IBD as well as neuroimmunology and sex differences in IBD patients.
- Christoph Thaiss, PhD, Arc Research Institute
- Adam Lacy-Hulbert, PhD, and James Lord, MD, PhD, Benaroya Research Institute at Virginia Mason
- Sarkis Mazmanian, PhD, California Institute of Technology, and Philipp Holschneider, MD, University of Southern California
- Meenakshi Rao, MD, PhD, Boston Children’s Hospital
- Lee Denson, MD, Michael Helmrath, MD, and James Wells, PhD, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center
- Hyun Jung Kim, MD, and Olumuyiwa Awoniyi, MD, Cleveland Clinic
- James Lee, MD, PhD, and Brigitta Stockinger, PhD, Francis Crick Institute
- Wendy Garrett, MD, PhD, and Curtis Huttenhower, PhD, Harvard University
- Iliyan Iliev, PhD, Weill Cornell Medicine
- Gloria Choi, PhD, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Ziad Al Nabhani, PhD, Universität Bern
- Andreas Baumler, PhD, and Jee-Yon Lee, MD, PhD, University of California, Davis
- Tiffany Scharschmidt, MD, University of California, San Francisco; James Gardner, MD, PhD, University of California, San Francisco; and Caleb Lareau, PhD, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
- Michael Kattah, MD, PhD, University of California, San Francisco
- Jason Cyster, PhD, University of California, San Francisco
- Timothy Hand, PhD, University of Pittsburgh
- Andrew Wang, MD, PhD, and Ezra Burstein, MD, PhD, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
Hormonal changes affect IBD symptoms but how is mostly unknown. With Rainin support we are examining how testosterone alters nerve function to impact colitis and how to harness these effects to predict and treat IBD.
Meenakshi Rao, MD, PhD, Boston Children’s Hospital
Read more about the 2025 Innovator Awards grantee projects.
About The Kenneth Rainin Foundation
Kenneth Rainin Foundation is a family foundation that collaborates with creative thinkers in the Arts, Education and Health. We believe in taking smart risks to achieve breakthroughs. Our grantmaking supports visionary artists in the Bay Area, creates opportunities for Oakland’s youngest learners and funds researchers on the forefront of scientific discoveries. Since 2009, the Foundation has awarded over $52 million in funding to spur breakthroughs in predicting, diagnosing, treating and eventually curing IBD. Learn more about the Rainin Foundation’s grantmaking.
