Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research has received USD 4.9 million in NIH grants across two multi-year awards targeting acute inflammation and Alzheimer's disease, reflecting sustained federal interest in mechanistic research across immunology and neurodegeneration.
The awards support parallel programs led by overlapping investigator teams at the Manhasset, New York-based research arm of Northwell Health. The first grant, led by Monowar Aziz and Ping Wang, focuses on B-1a cells — an innate-like B cell population — and their role in regulating acute inflammatory responses. Dysregulated acute inflammation underlies conditions including sepsis, where therapeutic options remain limited; understanding how B-1a cells modulate these responses could identify targetable immune checkpoints upstream of systemic inflammatory injury.
The second award, led by Archna Sharma, Wang, and Philippe Marambaud, examines neurotoxic astrocyte contributions to Alzheimer's neurodegeneration. Astrocyte reactivity has emerged as a mechanistically distinct driver of neuronal loss, separate from the amyloid and tau pathways that have dominated drug development. Targeting reactive astrocyte states represents an approach with growing preclinical support, though no approved therapies have yet validated the strategy clinically.
The two programs share senior investigator Wang, who serves as chief scientific officer at the Feinstein Institutes, suggesting an institutional strategy of building cross-disease mechanistic expertise around inflammation biology — relevant given that neuroinflammation increasingly connects Alzheimer's pathology to broader immune dysregulation research.