PHILADELPHIA – OCTOBER 6, 2026 – Neeraj Lal, PhD, Assistant Member of the Monell Center, has been awarded the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director’s New Innovator Award, which recognizes exceptionally creative early-career investigators pursuing bold research with the potential to make a major impact on biomedical and behavioral science.
Dr. Lal’s research explores how Arctic ground squirrels survive extreme conditions—and what their natural defenses could teach us about human health. These animals prepare for hibernation by gaining substantial weight and becoming less responsive to insulin, then reverse those changes without developing diabetes. They also withstand the slowest body and brain temperatures recorded for any mammal.
Dr. Lal’s team is developing NAMs (New Approach Methodologies) and genetic tools to investigate how these protective abilities work, from individual cells to the whole animal. Rather than studying only what goes wrong in disease, Dr. Lal’s group is asking fundamental questions that will shed new light on novel treatments for multiple chronic diseases.
This represents a unique opportunity to uncover evolutionary solutions for developing novel therapeutic strategies for diabetes, muscle wasting disorders, and ischemic injuries affecting millions of patients worldwide.
The $3.8 million, 5-year NIH award (grant number DP2DK152025-01) will support Dr. Lal’s research program.
Established in 2007, the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award supports unusually innovative research from promising early-stage investigators who have not yet received a substantial NIH independent research award. Unlike many traditional research funding opportunities, it does not require preliminary data or a detailed experimental plan, giving investigators an opportunity to pursue unconventional ideas.
About the Monell Chemical Senses Center
The Monell Chemical Senses Center is an independent nonprofit research institute in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1968 to advance and share discoveries in the science of the chemical senses of smell, taste, chemesthesis, and interoception to solve the world’s health, societal, and environmental challenges.
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