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When David Mendoza-Cózatl, a 2006 Pew Latin American fellow in the biomedical sciences, got an email soliciting applications for the Pew Innovation Fund, he sprang into action.
The program provides alumni from any Pew biomedical program with funding to pursue collaborative, intensely interdisciplinary projects. Mendoza-Cózatl hoped to explore the relationships that plants establish with bacterial communities — interactions that can benefit both parties.
“My expertise is in plant biology,” he said. “But I know nothing about bacteria. So I went to the Pew website and asked: Who works with the microbiome?”
Professor Clarissa Nobile ’s name came up, and Mendoza-Cózatl sent her a note. In 2015, Nobile was named a Pew Biomedical Scholar, the first for UC Merced, for her work on investigating microbial interactions and how they affect human health.
“I’ve always wanted to get more into the agricultural side of things,” Nobile said. “So, I thought, why not?”
“That’s the power of Pew,” Mendoza-Cózatl said. “All it took was one email to establish our collaboration.” A few Zoom meetings later, the pair refined their proposal, focusing on how bacteria can facilitate a plant’s iron uptake.
About 30% of the world’s population is iron deficient, so finding ways to enhance iron levels in crops “could be an agricultural game changer,” said Nobile. Pew agreed and awarded the pair an Innovation Fund grant in 2022.
This partnership is just one example of the thriving collaborative and cooperative spirit as the Pew biomedical programs celebrate a significant anniversary: 40 years since the Pew Scholars Program in the Biomedical Sciences was founded. The program, the first in the organization’s history to carry the Pew name, has supported over 800 outstanding young researchers, many of whom have received major scientific awards, including six Nobel Prizes.
In the ensuing years, Pew’s biomedical programs continued growing, expanding to include the Pew Latin American Fellows Program in the Biomedical Sciences, launched in 1991. In 2014, Pew and the Alexander and Margaret Stewart Trust partnered to launch the Pew-Stewart Scholars Program for Cancer Research. Three years later, in 2017, the Pew Innovation Fund began.
These programs bring together cohorts of talented early-career scientists — assistant professors in the case of scholars and postdocs in the case of fellows — and provide them with significant funding over two to four years.
In addition, the programs bring these participants together for an intensive week of science and socializing every year. By doing so, The Pew Charitable Trusts not only support promising young investigators at a critical juncture in their academic journeys but also cultivates relationships, mentorships and collaboration and exposes participants to a broad range of innovative ideas designed to ignite their curiosity and trigger rewarding new avenues of research. Those efforts ultimately deepen understanding of biological systems and pave the way toward improving human health.
“It’s the most impactful and meaningful philanthropic life sciences programs I’ve ever worked with,” said Craig Mello of the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School, Worcester, former National Advisory Committee chair to the program and a 1995 biomedical scholar. “It instills the importance of sharing ideas and reinforces the philosophy that the mission of science is to benefit humanity and make a positive impact on the world.”
The trick lies in supporting cohorts of imaginative, interdisciplinary individuals who are pioneers and leaders in their fields.
Going the extra mile to bring these investigators together each year lays the groundwork for them to make enduring professional and personal connections.
“Pew creates a real cohort, a real community that continues even after you leave,” said Lee Niswander of the University of Colorado, Boulder, a 1995 biomedical scholar who took over for Mello as chair in 2024. Attending the meetings, she said, “opens up amazing intersections that you wouldn’t establish otherwise.” Such novel combinations can give rise to truly groundbreaking research.
Pew’s investment in each of its grantees is life-changing from the start.
“When you have an organization as prestigious as Pew say, ‘We think your work is worthy of being recognized,’ it gives you the confidence to tackle difficult projects that other people are telling you are too risky,” said Song Tan of Pennsylvania State University, a 2001 biomedical scholar.
And the added funding (anywhere from $130,000 to $300,000 throughout the grants) certainly helps.
Receiving a Pew scholarship boosts grantees’ visibility at a time when making connections is crucial.
Scholars also bring various ideas and experiences from a broad swath of institutions.
“Pew values diversity in their programs,” said Nobile. “Going to Pew meetings and interacting with people from a variety of backgrounds in terms of experience, expertise, fields, different kinds of institutions, and different countries has really been transformative.”
