April 2, 2025
Katie Galloway, the W. M. Keck Career Development Professor in Biomedical Engineering and Chemical Engineering has won the MIND (Maximizing Innovation in Neuroscience Discovery) Prize, an initiative dedicated to fueling groundbreaking research in neurodegenerative diseases (NDDs) from the Pershing Square Foundation.
The MIND Prize supports early-to-mid-career investigators who are rethinking conventional paradigms in neuroscience and driving innovations in the fight against NDDs. Benefits of the award includes funding for three years to advance their research. Each year, five to seven prizes are awarded.
Galloway’s research seeks to define the fundamental principles of integrating synthetic circuitry into native gene regulatory processes to drive cellular behaviors.
As a graduate student at Caltech, Galloway developed RNA-based genetic control systems capable of dynamically programming cell fate in yeast. She later expanded this work during her postdoctoral training in stem cell biology and neuroscience, where she improved the process of converting mouse and human skin cells into motor neurons. Now leading her lab at MIT, she leverages insights from biophysics, synthetic biology, molecular biology, and gene regulation to build genetic control systems that enhance cellular reprogramming and advancements in regenerative medicine.
Galloway earned her PhD in Chemical Engineering from the California Institute of Technology, and a BS in Chemical Engineering from University of California at Berkeley. She completed her postdoctoral work at the University of Southern California. Galloway’s research has been featured in top scientific journals such as Science, Cell Stem Cell, Cell Systems, Cell Reports, and Development. She has received numerous prestigious awards, including the NSF CAREER Award, the BMES Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering Rising Star Award, Princeton’s CBE Saville Lecture Award, the NIH Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award, and Caltech’s Everhart Award.
For more information about the MIND Prize, visit the website.