RESEARCH HONOR: Wilson receives NJ Health Foundation Innovation Grant

Max Wilson, a postdoctoral research associate in Princeton University's Department of Molecular Biology, has received a $50,000 Innovation Grant from the New Jersey Health Foundation to advance two projects aimed at controlling cell behavior to improve treatments for a wide range of diseases. One project will develop a technique for treating cancer, autoimmune diseases and neurological disorders called optogenetics that would enable researchers to use light-responsive proteins to precisely control the therapeutic behaviors of cells and greatly reduce treatment side effects. The second project aims to use a two-tiered level of precision medicine to target tumor cells and reduce the severe side effects of traditional radiation and chemotherapy. Wilson will work with Alexander Goglia, a student in the Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School-Princeton University M.D./Ph.D. Program, under the supervision of Jared Toettcher, a Princeton assistant professor of molecular biology.