Lei Peng, Assocaite Research Scientist at Yale University, shared on LinkedIn:
“I am thrilled and deeply grateful to share that I have received the Notice of Award for my NIH/NCI K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Award!
This award represents a very meaningful milestone in my scientific journey and an important step toward establishing my independent research program.
With support from the National Cancer Institute (NCI), my K99/R00 research will investigate how receptor signaling and cellular-state regulation can be harnessed to enhance natural killer (NK) cell fitness and function, with the goal of developing more effective NK-cell immunotherapies for solid tumors.
This milestone would not have been possible without the mentorship, trust, and support of so many people throughout my scientific journey.
I am deeply grateful to my mentor and K99/R00 sponsor, Dr. Murat Gunel, for his tremendous support, mentorship, and encouragement. I am also especially thankful to Dr. Andre Levchenko for his invaluable scientific guidance, mentorship, and continued support as I have developed my independent research vision.
My deepest appreciation also goes to my PhD and my postdoctoral mentors. Their training, mentorship, and support at critical stages of my career have profoundly shaped the scientist I am today. I am equally grateful to Drs. Craig Wilen and Yong Xiong for their generous support as referees for this award.
I am sincerely thankful to my advisory committee – Drs. Mark A. Lemmon, Hongbo Chi, Dongfang Liu, Shrikant Mane, and Roel Verhaak – for their invaluable advice, expertise, and encouragement. I am also grateful to my collaborators – Drs. Sidi Chen, Kai W. Wucherpfennig, Michael R. Koelle, and Rong Fan – for generously contributing their expertise and support to this research.
My heartfelt thanks extend to all my mentors, collaborators, colleagues, lab members, trainees, friends, and family who have supported me along the way.
\Scientific progress is never an individual journey, and this milestone reflects the generosity, mentorship, collaboration, and encouragement of an extraordinary community.
I am also sincerely grateful to the NIH/NCI, the reviewers, and the program and grants management teams for their support and confidence in this research.
As I enter this next stage, I am excited to further develop my independent research program focused on decoding and programming immune-cell states for immunotherapeutic engineering.
I look forward to the opportunities ahead to build a research team, mentor the next generation of scientists, and translate fundamental discoveries in immune-cell biology into new therapeutic strategies.
A new chapter begins – and I am deeply grateful to everyone who helped make it possible.”
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