Knight Campus postdoctoral scholar Genevieve Romanowicz, DDS, PhD, was recently awarded a K99 Pathway to Independence Award from the National Institute of Dental & Craniofacial Research (NIDCR) for her project, "Bone-like organoids to understand factors controlling local bone immune response and regeneration." Romanowicz is a postdoctoral scholar in the lab of Robert Guldberg, developing bone-like organoids for bone regeneration and to better understand the immune response to improve bone healing outcomes. She is co-mentored by Luiz Bertassoni at Oregon Health & Science University.  
 

"This award will allow me to gain additional training to understand and characterize the local immune response during healing in complex craniofacial defects, which I will continue to study in my future independent career," Romanowicz said. "I also will gain training in aspects of translating bench science to clinic to ultimately have a bigger impact on patient care in dentistry."   
 

Romanowicz is the first to be awarded the prestigious K99 award at the Knight Campus for Accelerating Scientific Impact. She is one of four awardees so far this year from NIDCR and the award totals over $440,000 for two years in her training phase with $750,000 for three years when she transitions to an independent career. 

 

The K99/R00 award is designed for promising postdoctoral scientists. It provides both mentored and independent research support.