11 Feb ITHS Announces 2026 Pilot Awardees
The Institute of Translational Health Sciences is excited to announce the Pilot Award recipients for 2026. The Pilot program is designed to inspire innovative and collaborative research aimed at improving overall human health. This year’s awardees were selected from a diverse group of applicants whose research spans the translational science spectrum, including basic research, clinical implementation, public health, and clinical and pre-clinical research.
Pilot funding offers investigators the opportunity to obtain preliminary data in order to establish a proof of concept and seek larger funding amounts. Investigators supported by the Pilot Program are expanding knowledge in areas of community health, cancer research, brain and spine health, prosthetics and infectious diseases. This year’s researchers come from across the University of Washington (UW), Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, Seattle Children’s and the University of Montana.
You can learn more about all of the awards ITHS offers and past recipients on our Pilots Program page.
This Year’s Awardees
ITHS offered pilot funding in three categories for 2026: Early-Stage Product Development, and Translation Research Partnership Awards for Academic Community Partnerships and for New Interdisciplinary Academic Partnerships.
Academic Community Partnership Award
This awards supports collaborations between academic and community investigators in projects that investigate a community-based health problem, disseminate evidence-based health innovations into practice, target health promotion or prevention, or examine ways to enhance or implement sustainable health programs in community settings. Applications that propose research to plan or implement a new intervention or innovation in clinical settings are especially encouraged for this award.
This year two projects will receive the Academic Community Partnerships award.
- Dr. Peter Rabinowitz from the UW School of Public Health’s Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences will partner with the King County Healthcare for the Homeless Network on his project, “Health care through the Human-Animal Bond: An Academic-Community Research Collaboration Integrating Human and Veterinary Health Care for Unhoused Populations.”
- Dr. Claire Simon from the UW School of Medicine’s Department of Family Medicine and Dr. Emily Williams from the Department of Health Systems and Population Health in the UW School of Public Health will partner with the Roger Saux Health Center of the Quinault Indian Nation. Their project is called “Partnering with the Quinault Indian Nation to co-design a substance use prevention program for adolescents.”
New Interdisciplinary Academic Partnership Awards
This award is designed to encourage and support the formation and development of partnerships in projects that address critical transitions in translational research in innovative ways, with the potential to become long-term collaborations showing a deep commitment to a common goal.
ITHS is giving these awards to three new teams this year.
- Dr. Sean C. Murphy of Seattle Children’s and the UW Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology will collaborate with Dr. Barry Lutz of the UW Department of Bioengineering on a project called, “A field-deployable, ultrasensitive molecular diagnostic to transform malaria infection detection.”
- Dr. Diana Barrett Wiseman of UW Department of Neurological Surgery and Dr. Christopher Lewis of the UW Department of Rehabilitation Medicine will partner on their project “AI-Enhanced Data Capture, Classification, and Decision Support for Traumatic Brain and Spine Injury Care.”
- Dr. Frank Pavia and Dr. Randelle Bundy, both from the UW School of Oceanography, will work with Dr. Raymond Yeung (UW Department of Surgery) and Dr. Clemens Grassberger (Fred Hutch Radiation Oncology Division) on a project entitled “Analysis of metal-binding ligands as an early diagnostic tool for liver cancer.”
Early-Stage Product Development Award
This award is designed to help translate clinically relevant research discoveries toward development of commercial products that improve human health. Projects should be designed to demonstrate or strengthen critical evidence that the envisioned product accomplishes its health-related purpose with respect to safety, efficacy, scalability, feasibility or clinical utility (i.e., proof of concept).
This year, ITHS awarded two projects the Early-Stage Product Development Award.
- Dr. Stefania Fatone of the UW School of Medicine’s Department of Rehabilitation Medicine received the award for a project called “Evaluation of a prototype socket fit testing system to assess coupling of the prosthetic socket in individuals with lower limb amputation.”
- Dr. Catherine Off and Dr. Jenna Griffin Musick from the University of Montana School of Speech, Language, Hearing, & Occupational Sciences and Dr. Anh Nguyen from the University of Montana Department of Computer Science will collaborate on their project “Accessible Health Reporting: A Digital AI-Driven Solution for Stroke Survivors with Aphasia.”
The next round of applications for the awards above opens in a few months, but our Catalyst and Voucher awards are offered quarterly and they might be just what you need to get your translational science project finished. Check out all our awards now!
