Two Indian American researchers, Neeraj K. Lal and Kavita J. Rangan, are among 42 recipients of the 2026 National Institutes of Health Director’s New Innovator Award for research examining biological resilience and RNA editing.
The awards are part of the NIH’s High-Risk, High-Reward Research program, which supports innovative projects with the potential to advance biomedical and behavioral science. The awards are part of 58 grants across the program totaling about $237.5 million.
Lal, an assistant member at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia, received $3.8 million over five years to support his research program focusing on how Arctic ground squirrels survive extreme environmental and physiological conditions, including prolonged periods of hibernation.
Before hibernation, Arctic ground squirrels gain substantial weight and become less responsive to insulin leading to later reverse these changes without developing diabetes. The animals can also tolerate extremely low body temperatures and reductions in blood flow that would damage human tissues.
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Lal’s research aims to understand the biological mechanisms behind these adaptations. His team is developing new approach methodologies and genetic tools to investigate the processes involved, from individual cells to the whole animal.
The work could help scientists better understand the mechanisms involved in protecting tissues under physiological stress and potential areas of relevance include metabolic disorders, muscle wasting and ischemic injuries, which occur when tissues do not receive adequate blood flow. The research does not establish that new treatments will result.
Rangan, an assistant professor in the Department of Biology at Johns Hopkins University, received the award for a project titled “RNA Recoding as a Driver of Molecular Innovation and Adaptation.”
Her research examines RNA editing in cephalopods, a group that includes squid, octopuses and cuttlefish. RNA editing can change the information carried by messenger RNA, sometimes altering the amino acid sequence of the resulting protein without changing the underlying DNA.
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Rangan’s project will develop Recoding Explorer, an open-access resource intended to help researchers identify protein sites where RNA editing may have functional importance.
The research will also investigate how RNA recoding affects genome maintenance, with particular attention to DNA polymerase zeta, an enzyme involved in DNA damage tolerance. Another objective is to identify proteins that regulate where RNA editing occurs.
The project could expand scientific understanding of how RNA editing influences protein function and adaptation. Its findings may also inform future work in protein engineering, although practical applications remain to be established.
The NIH Director’s New Innovator Award was established in 2007 to support early-career investigators pursuing unusually innovative research.