Research Awards

Hellen Amuguni, B.V.M., M.A., Ph.D., was given a three-year award from the Cummings Foundation to support the One Health Collaborative, an initiative focused on advancing interdisciplinary One Health research and implementing sustainable, community-centered interventions at the human–animal–environment interface. The award will also support the expansion of the International One Health Fellowship Program and the One Health for Kids project. This investment will create transformative opportunities for students, fellows, and faculty to reimagine public health through field-based research, clinical service, and community-level policy engagement-generating tangible impact in under-resourced settings. This award went into effect in January 2026. 

Liz Byrnes was awarded an R21 grant titled “Fentanyl Overdose, Anhedonia and Relapse Risk.” The funding is from NIDA.

Amanda Martinot, D.V.M., M.P.H., Ph.D., DACVP, received an award: "R21 NIAID: Spatial multi-omics to predict granuloma trajectory and bacterial restriction during vaccination." Major goals include using novel technology in spatial profiling to interrogate how granulomas restrict bacterial replication following vaccination and to develop multi-omics model to correlate tissue level responses to peripheral markers of vaccine efficacy. 

Felicia Nutter, D.V.M., Ph.D., DAZCM received seed funding from the Fletcher School, along with her Co-PI Karen Jacobsen, for their Research Interest Group on approaches to countering integrated wildlife and human trafficking. Their goal is development of a center, the TRACE Center: Technology, Rights, Antitrafficking, Conservation, and Enforcement. 

Andrea Varela-Stokes (PI) and John Stokes (Co-I) received an NIH R01 grant that started Feb 1, 2025, entitled, “At the site of the bite: Immune response to tick-transmitted Rickettsiae.” Total direct costs $2,496,115.

Allen Rutberg received a $20,000 grant from The Humane Society of the United States, and a $5,000 gift from the Burket-Plack Foundation; both to support his wildlife contraception research.

Chuck Shoemaker was named a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI) on December 10, 2024. He and other fellows will be honored at the upcoming NAI annual meeting in June 2025 in Atlanta, GA.

Dr. Saul Tzipori (Principal Investigator) and Dr. Abhineet Sheoran (Project Leader) were awarded NIH Contract focused on Treponema pallidum, a recently reemerged serious pathogen for humans, entitled “Minimum inhibitory concentration testing and efficacy studies in a rabbit model of Treponema pallidum infection”. It is scheduled to last two years.

Saul was also awarded two NIH umbrella contracts of Preclinical Models of Infectious Disease, first awarded in 2010, and recently renewed for 7 more years (2010-2031).

Dr. Patrick Skelly and Dr. Akram Da’dara’s R01 grant entitled Functional Characterization of the Schistosome Tegument was awarded by the NIH for a 5 year term.

Marieke Rosenbaum, M.P.H., D.V.M.
Identifying Pathogenicity-Related Variants of HSV-1 among trafficked primates in Peru 
Principal Investigator (PI): Marieke H. Rosenbaum
Collaborators: Bruno M. Ghersi & Fernando Vilchez-Delgado
American Association of Zoo Veterinarians Wildlife Health Fund
5/15/2024 - 11/1/2025

Yi-Pin Lin, Ph. D.
Immunomodulatory mechanisms of wild bird reservoir hosts that facilitate the persistence of Lyme disease bacteria. 
Principal Investigator (PI): Yi-Pin Lin
NIH-NIAID
R01AI181746
4/1/2024 - 3/31/2029

Allen Rutberg, Ph.D.
Fertility Control Studies for Wild 
Horses and Burro Populations
Grant covers wildlife fertility control research.
Humane Society of the United States
7/1/24 - 6/30/25

Patrick Skelly, Ph.D. & Akram Da’Dara, Ph.D.
Functional Characterization of the Schistosome Tegument
Renewal of 5-year, NIH R01 grant
R01AI056273
In this grant we study selected proteins at the host-interactive surface (that we earlier identified) in order to understand how the worms control host hemostasis while remaining available for trans-tegumental nutrient import.

Giovanni Widmer, Ph.D.
Cryptosporidium mutagenesis
NIH | 7/31/23
This grant supports research to develop methods for mutagenizing
Cryptosporidium parvum. Mutagenized parasite lines will be screened for drug resistances. By comparing the genome of resistant parasites with that of the parent susceptible line, we aim to identify mutations which confer drug resistance. This approach, sometimes referred to as “forward genetics”, is expected to elucidate the mechanism of action of anti-Cryptosporidium drugs.

Maureen Murray, D.V.M., D.A.B.V.P.
Funding from the Sacco Foundation
Tufts Wildlife Clinic has received critical funding to support our general operations from the Sacco Foundation for several years. Funding support began in 2016 and has continued into 2024. The clinic has received approximately $180,000 dollars over the years from the foundation to support our important work done here in the clinic for wildlife. We hope to continue this wonderful relationship for many years to come as it is essential funding for our daily operations.

Charles Shoemaker, Ph.D.
The Springboard Award
This award supports a collaboration between the labs of Drs. Chuck Shoemaker and Lenore Cowen at Tufts to improve VHH discovery through development of deep learning tools that comprehensively filter the VHH repertoires and predict the best target binding candidates.

Meera Gatlin, D.V.M., M.P.H., D.A.C.V.P.M.
Elizabeth A Lawrence Endowed Fund for Community Outreach
Center for Animals and Public Policy
January 1, 2024 - December 31, 2024
Dr. Gatlin received the Elizabeth A Lawrence Endowed Fund for Community Outreach from the Center for Animals and Public Policy. She will be studying the impact of enhanced police dog training on the human-animal bond with their officers and the resulting public safety outcomes, including the narrative of “community policing”. A secondary objective of this study is to better inform police canine training standards as a policy recommendation to the Massachusetts Municipal Police Training Commission. This study is in collaboration with the Worcester Police Department and is the first of many planned studies on the role of police canines and their impact on public health and safety.

Charles Shoemaker, Ph. D. & Lenore Cowen, Ph. D.
Employing HTS and bioinformatics to dramatically enhance discovery of VHH antibodies (nanobodies) to therapeutic targets.
Tufts Data Intensive Studies Center (DISC)
November 13, 2023 - November 17, 2024
This award supports a collaboration between the labs of Drs. Chuck Shoemaker and Lenore Cowen at Tufts to employ bioinformatics, high throughput sequencing (HTS) and artificial intelligence (AI) technology to substantially enhance our ability to discover and characterize novel VHH single-domain antibodies (aka nanobodies) to protein targets of interest.