Newsletter | October 2026

Strengthening America’s Future Scientific Workforce

Foundation Offers Additional

2027 Fellowship Opportunities

The PhRMA Foundation is undertaking the largest expansion in its 60-year history, with plans to fund 500 early-career researchers over the next three years.

Leading biopharmaceutical companies have pledged more than $16 million to the initiative so far, reflecting a shared industry commitment to fostering future scientific leaders.

Learn more on our website.

To launch the program expansion, the Foundation announced additional 2027 funding opportunities for predoctoral students and postdoctoral trainees at U.S. universities in the following research areas:

Drug Discovery

Drug Delivery

Translational Medicine

Predoctoral Fellowships: $30,000 a year for up to two years

Postdoctoral Fellowships: $60,000 a year for up to two years

Submit a Letter of Intent by October 30 @ 12:00 p.m. (Noon) ET

Application Deadline: October 30 @
12:00 p.m. (Noon) ET

Value Assessment & Health Outcomes Research

The Foundation seeks proposals from PhD students and postdoctoral trainees investigating challenges and potential solutions related to evaluating the delivery, safe use, effectiveness, and value of medicines and other health care interventions.

Proposals that do not include meaningful engagement with patients, caregivers, or clinicians will be disqualified.

A Must-Read Before You Apply: PhRMA Foundation Publishes Guidance for Strengthening Patient Engagement in Value Assessment and HEOR Proposals

Application Resources

The PhRMA Foundation provides informational sessions, webinars, and blogs to help guide researchers in submitting standout letters of intent and applications.

View Resources

$5,000 Trainee Challenge Award

Advanced Modalities in Drug Development: Radiopharmaceuticals, ADCs, Delivery Systems and Biodistribution of Next-Generation Gene and Cell Therapies

The PhRMA Foundation and ASPET’s journal Drug Metabolism and Disposition are partnering on a Challenge Award competition that will award trainees for outstanding manuscripts submitted to this special call for papers.

The Foundation will provide the Challenge Award — a prize of $5,000 — to the first author of up to five winning papers.

The first author must be a grad student, postdoctoral fellow, or clinical resident. Only one first author per paper is allowed. All award money will be distributed to the first author only.

Learn More

Meet the Researchers

Hear our awardees discuss their research projects and career paths in videos and blogs.

Kan Li: Applying Lessons From Parenthood to Drug Discovery Research

Bushra Zaman: Studying a Protein That Could Help Protect and Restore Vision

Mary Nantongo: Improving Existing Antibiotics to Fight Tuberculosis

Zizheng Li: Using AI and Skin Cells to Advance Precision Medicine for ALS

More Awardee Interviews

Awardee News

David G. Armstrong, DPM, MD, PhD (PhF24) of the University of Southern California received the World Union of Wound Healing Societies Lifetime Achievement Award and was named a Fellow of the College of Wound Care Specialists during WUWHS 2026 in Kuala Lumpur in September.

Iftekhar (Sharaf) Ahmed, PhD (PhF24) completed his PhD at Purdue University and began a postdoctoral fellowship in the Clinical Epidemiology Center at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs in July.

Claire Fleming, MS (PhF25) of the University of Virginia gave an oral presentation about her PhF-supported research at the International Congress of Mucosal Immunology in July.

Jessica Fortin, DVM, PhD (PhF21) of Purdue University served as editor of the newly published book Translational Research Methods for Tauopathies, part of the Neuromethods book series.

Ruida Hou, MD, PhD (PhF26) of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital will present his PhF-supported research at the American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting in December.

Zhimin Huang, PhD (PhF25) of the University of Pittsburgh was awarded an NIH/NIBIB Trailblazer Award to develop ultrasound-controllable exosomes for noninvasive, targeted drug delivery to the brain.

Ariel Leyte-Vidal (PhF25) of the University of Miami will give an oral presentation about her PhF-supported research at the American Society of Hematology conference in December.

Melanie Martinsen (PhF26) of Brown University presented a poster on her PhF-supported research at the 2026 Neutrophil Conference in September.

Christina Michalski, PhD (PhF23) of Emory University presented her PhF-supported research at the 14th Biennial International 22q11.2 Conference in July and won a Top Session Presentation Award and Junior Investigator Award for this presentation.

Thalia Newman (PhF26) of the University of Michigan presented her PhF-funded work at the International Society of Thrombosis and Haemostasis meeting in July and the International Symposium of the Neutrophil earlier this month. She will also give a poster presentation at the American College of Rheumatology meeting in November.

Kewei (Sylvia) Shi, MPH (PhF26) of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will present her PhF-supported research at the 2026 ASCO Quality Care Symposium this month.

Claire Shudde, PhD (PhF23) has started a new postdoctoral position at the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation.

Xiyin Wang, MS, PhD (PhF24) recently joined Neurocrine Biosciences as a postdoctoral research scientist in investigative toxicology after completing his PhD at Mayo Clinic. He was also selected for a platform presentation at the 2026 Southern California Society of Toxicology Annual Fall Meeting earlier this month and received the First Place Postdoctoral Poster Award.

Stephanie Zawada, MS, PhD (PhF23) recently received two promotions: assistant professor of clinical and translational science at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and science technology development associate (medical devices and AI) at Mayo Clinic Business Development.