Key Points
- The Foundation is pleased to sponsor an American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy (ASGCT) Career Development Award for a second year.
- The 2026 recipient is Kaiyuan Zheng, PhD, a postdoctoral researcher at Columbia University.
Kaiyuan Zheng, PhD, is the recipient of the Foundation-sponsored American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy (ASGCT) Career Development Award for 2026.
This is the second annual ASGCT award funded by the Foundation to support independent transformative pilot studies in gene and cell therapy. The award is particularly intended to develop ideas that would be challenging to fund with traditional funding mechanisms. Each $100,000 grant helps an early career researcher generate preliminary data that can lead to more substantial follow-on funding.
Dr. Zheng is a postdoctoral research scientist in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Columbia University. Her project “Focused Ultrasound–Enhanced Systemic Delivery of Lipid Nanoparticles for Gene Therapy in Alzheimer’s Disease” will explore whether focused ultrasound can enable noninvasive and targeted delivery of nonviral gene editors to the brain. By temporarily and locally opening the blood-brain barrier, focused ultrasound can significantly improve the overall therapeutic potential of genetic interventions. This project will integrate focused ultrasound with Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR)–based gene editing and advanced nanoparticle engineering to develop more precise and effective treatments for Alzheimer’s disease.
“Positioned at the intersection of biomedical engineering, nanomaterial development, and gene therapy, my project aims to advance next-generation strategies for treating Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative diseases,” said Dr. Zheng “I am honored to receive this award from the Focused Ultrasound Foundation and ASGCT. My research is dedicated to developing noninvasive approaches for precise brain gene delivery and editing, with the long-term goal of enabling safer and more effective therapeutic strategies for neurological diseases.”
“Supporting early-career researchers is essential to driving innovation in this space, and to ensuring that fresh ideas and pioneering approaches continue to shape the future of gene therapy, said Frédéric Padilla, PhD, director of the Foundation’s Gene and Cell Therapy Program. “Our partnership with ASGCT plays a crucial role in bringing in new talent with complementary expertise in gene and cell therapy, helping us identify the most promising research directions, and ensuring we focus on the most relevant challenges.”
Dr. Zheng joins 12 other ASGCT Career Development Award Recipients this year, three of which were also funded by partner organizations. See all of the awardees.