Annual REPORT FY 2025-2026

TABLE OF Contents

• Letters from Leadership
• EAB Members
• Impact Summary: Collaboration Supercharges Discovery
• New Faculty: Zhonglin Liu, Ph.D. and Jinyoung Kang, Ph.D.
• Grant Highlights
• Centers of Excellence
• Academic Accomplishments
• Education Highlights
• Notable Publications
• Intellectual Property
• Advancement
• Communications
• Afterword

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Letters From Leadership

Letters from leadership

Institute Scientific Director Patrick Griffin, Ph.D.

Solving the toughest challenges in medicine requires exceptional teams and advanced technology. As proud members of the Gator Nation, we are fortunate to have both and more. In 2025, the University of Florida's 33,000 research employees secured an astonishing $1.33 billion in sponsored research. The Wertheim UF Scripps Institute's deep expertise in biomedical and translational research, including drug discovery, makes us a vital contributor to this success. As cross-campus research collaborations continue to grow, the ultimate beneficiaries are the patients and communities awaiting better treatments. We invite you to explore The Wertheim UF Scripps Institute's 2025-2026 Annual Report and its many stories of collaboration, innovation and discovery. Your support makes it possible.

letters from leadership

CFO James Lapple

As the state of Florida's flagship research institution, the University of Florida has demonstrated its long-term commitment to biomedical research excellence. In the 2025-26 fiscal year, the university made significant capital investments in The Wertheim UF Scripps campus, improving our core scientific resources and our internal scientific facilities' equipment. Such investments have enhanced our internal capacity for external scientific recruiting and ensured we continue to maintain a state-of-the-art research environment far into the future. We're excited to see how these investments bear fruit in discoveries, collaborations and hope for a healthier future.

External SCIENTIFIC advisory BOARD

The External Scientific Advisory Board members’ knowledge and expertise helps advance the institute’s mission and commitment to the highest quality research.

Meet the Advisers

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IMPACT Summary

BETTER TOGETHER: Collaboration Supercharges Discovery

When man’s best friend develops cancer, veterinarians often use human medications to treat them, because dogs and humans share deep biological similarities. This creates an opportunity for both species to help each other, through comparative studies, said Elizabeth Maxwell, DVM, a surgical oncologist at the University of Florida College of Veterinary Medicine in Gainesville.

Maxwell has teamed up with the robotic drug discovery group at The Herbert Wertheim UF Scripps Institute for Biomedical Innovation & Technology on studies of the aggressive skin cancer melanoma, and a type of bone cancer that’s rare in humans, but more common in dogs, called osteosarcoma.

“By comparing drug responses across canine and human cancer cell lines, we can identify shared therapeutic strategies that will benefit both species,” Maxwell said.

Maxwell’s proposal is one of 18 selected for the Cancer High Throughput Screening Drug Discovery Initiative underway at The Wertheim UF Scripps Institute, in partnership with the UF Health Cancer Institute. Sharing UF grant support of $340,000, UF scientists are teaming up with experts at The Wertheim UF Scripps Institute to target cancer’s biological mysteries and seek potential drug leads for many cancer types. Projects underway address cancers caused by viruses, leukemia, breast, lung, skin, bone, head, neck, colorectal cancers and more.

Rolf Renne, Ph.D., associate director for basic sciences at the UF Health Cancer Institute, said the initiative enables cancer investigators to access a unique, world-class small-molecule screening facility. Small molecules have drug-like properties that make them potentially useful medicines.  

“I cannot wait to learn about the potential impact on cancer treatment the initiative will have in the future,” he said.

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NEW FACULTY

New Faculty Bring Unique Chemistry and Proteomics Expertise

Chemist Zhonglin Liu Blends Computational Proteomics With Traditional Bench Chemistry

Chemist Zhonglin Liu, Ph.D., has joined the University of Florida as an assistant professor jointly appointed to The Wertheim UF Scripps chemistry department and the medicinal chemistry department in the UF College of Pharmacy. His lab is in Jupiter. Liu’s research focuses on the discovery of drug-like small molecules that target human proteins, as well as their functional characterization. Prior to joining UF, Liu was a staff scientist in the laboratory of Benjamin Cravatt, Ph.D., at Scripps Research.

The human genome has an estimated 30,000 protein-coding genes, but only about 15% of them can be readily targeted with medicines due to structural or other challenges, leaving many untreatable diseases. Liu is inventing new chemistry methods and harnessing artificial intelligence and supercomputing tools to drive the search for new medicines.

MIT-Trained Neuroscientist Jinyoung Kang Blends Engineering and Chemistry

Neuroscientist Jinyoung Kang, Ph.D., is blazing a path into a small — very small — yet growing discipline called nanoscale neuro-engineering. Kang’s research aims to help millions of people with conditions that involve dysregulated brain signaling, including Parkinson’s, epilepsy and Alzheimer’s, by inventing tools and therapies that are so tiny they may be about 1 billionth of a meter across.

Seeing and working with such small materials requires ingenuity. Kang’s thesis work at the University of California, San Diego, focused on nanoengineering. During her postdoctoral work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, she co-invented new expansion microscopy tools to see the molecules that traverse the gaps between neurons, called synapses. Her techniques allow scientists to see molecules that would be too small or crowded for a traditional light microscope to resolve, providing insights into brain design at a level never previously seen.

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GRANT Highlights

$60.4 Million in Revenues in FY 2025-2026

In their quest to address some of the most difficult challenges in medicine and science, Wertheim UF Scripps scientists attracted nearly $53 million in government grants in the 2025-26 fiscal year. Private industry, foundations, endowment spending and royalty income added another $7 million in revenue. Here are some highlights.

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Protecting Children from HIV

Mauricio Martins, Ph.D., was awarded a grant from the National Institutes of Health for his innovative research into protecting young children from HIV infection. Each year, hundreds of thousands of babies contract HIV-1 infection, often during breastfeeding years. A recent study by their group showed delivery of HIV-1 broadly neutralizing antibody genes using a viral vector can protect for years. However, if infants are not treated shortly after birth, the therapy can trigger an immune response that renders them ineffective. Martins’ recent study shows that this response can be prevented by exposure in utero. The grant will enable Martins and his team to define the mechanisms and pursue strategies for extending the period following birth when the therapy can be administered without producing harmful immune responses. Their work may also uncover new opportunities for treating autoimmune diseases and rejection of transplanted organs.

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Designing New Antivirals

Susana Valente, Ph.D., was awarded a grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for her work developing a new type of antiviral drug. Valente’s laboratory is pioneering a new class of antivirals that shut HIV down at its source, turning off the virus’s own gene transcription. Her team targets Tat, the “trans-activator of transcription,” a viral protein that flips HIV from silent to active and drives both viral production and toxicity. Working with Wertheim UF Scripps medicinal chemists, she has identified drug-like small molecules that trigger Tat’s destruction by the cell’s recycling machinery, called the ubiquitin-proteasome system. The strategy offers simpler, more scalable alternatives to earlier Tat inhibitors, Valente said. The grant is enabling her team to refine these drug candidates, test them in primary human cells and humanized mouse models and advance a block- and – lock strategy aimed at durable, treatment- free control of HIV.

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Vanquishing an ‘Undruggable’ Cancer Target

Matthew Disney, Ph.D., was awarded a research project grant from the National Institutes of Health to target one of the most challenging drivers of cancer, the MYC oncogene. MYC is a so-called “transcription factor” which regulates gene networks that control cell growth, metabolism, DNA repair and cell survival. It has long been considered “undruggable” due to its disordered protein structure. This work takes a different approach by targeting the RNA that encodes MYC rather than the protein itself. The strategy uses small, drug-like molecules that bind structured regions of MYC RNA, short for ribonucleic acid, and converts them into smart missiles called ribonuclease-targeting chimeras, or RiboTACs. These molecules recruit existing cell enzymes to the targeted RNA, promoting selective degradation, before the protein can be produced.

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Fighting Inflammation

Joe G.N. “Skip” Garcia, Ph.D., was awarded a grant from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute to understand and find treatments for inflammation, endothelial cell permeability and leading causes of death during the COVID-19 pandemic — acute respiratory distress syndrome and ventilator-induced lung injury. Garcia previously discovered a crucial signaling molecule in the inflammatory cascade, called eNAMPT, short for extracellular nicotinamide phosphoribosyltransferase. Garcia then developed a monoclonal antibody able to reduce eNAMPT signaling, and showed it could protect lungs from injury during infection and ventilation. The grant enables further study of the experimental therapy’s protective mechanisms, and optimization of its dosing and therapeutic treatment window.

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Exploring Brain Connections

Ezgi Hacisuleyman, Ph.D., received a grant from the National Institute of Generalized Medical Sciences for her work exploring how neurons rapidly change in response to external cues. By using advanced imaging tools and molecular labeling techniques, her research examines the process neurons employ to generate the energy and signaling surge needed to communicate and connect. The award is focused on the mechanisms and regulation of cellular function, including sending RNAs to extreme ends of neurons. “A deeper understanding of how cells strategically localize and produce essential RNAs and proteins is crucial for developing targeted therapies for diseases caused by cellular miscommunication, such as genetic disorders, cancers and neurological conditions,” Hacisuleyman said.

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Exploring the Brain’s Number Sense

Ryoma Hattori, Ph.D., was awarded the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, which supports early-career investigators pursuing high-impact research. Hattori studies how the brain makes decisions and processes numbers, with a focus on the neural circuits behind “number sense,” a critical ability for everyday life that is impaired in conditions such as dyscalculia. His work aims to uncover how neural circuits form and function, laying the groundwork for future therapies for number-related disorders. His research also bridges neuroscience and artificial intelligence. Hattori is developing AI tools to accelerate discovery, while insights from brain circuitry may help inform more adaptive and intelligent AI systems.

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Sticking it to Cancer

Thomas Kodadek, Ph.D., won a worldwide competition to collaborate with Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, on developing ways to exploit cells’ own internal recycling systems to fight cancer and other incurable diseases. Kodadek’s proposal called for finding drug-like molecules able to glue together a disease-driving molecule, such as a mutated protein, with an enzyme tag that sends it to recycling. Kodadek’s group has created a collection of chemical compounds linked to the surface of microscopic beads. The treated beads are incubated with enzymes that can tag items for recycling in a cellular machine called a proteasome. The tagging compound provides a potential drug lead, or starting point, Kodadek said. “We are in the early days of the development of this technology,” Kodadek said. “Initial indications are that it has enormous potential to speed the discovery of these potentially game-changing molecular glues.”

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Unpacking Chromatin Chemical Biology

Ciaran Seath, Ph.D., received a grant from Pfizer to apply a technique called photo proximity labeling to the study of potential cancer drugs. “Gene expression — the process by which cells turn genes on and off — is tightly controlled within the nucleus by proteins and chemical modifications to DNA and chromatin. When this regulation is disrupted, it can drive the development and progression of cancer,” Seath said, adding that many emerging cancer therapies, including several developed by Pfizer, aim to correct these epigenetic abnormalities. Chromatin is the essential complex of DNA, RNA and protein that packages genetic material into chromosomes and unspools to allow transcription of genes into proteins. Modifications to it can change proteins’ function in helpful ways, and also harmful ones that lead to disease. Developing ways to understand the difference between beneficial and harmful modifications represents an important but highly complex scientific goal. Seath’s group has developed a useful method that uses iridium catalysts that become activated when exposed to visible light. The objective is to provide new insight into how epigenetic, or gene modifying, therapies function at the molecular level, helping to explain why some patients respond to treatment while others do not, Seath said. “Ultimately, these findings could guide the development of more effective therapies and improve outcomes for patients with advanced breast cancer.”

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Centers of Excellence

The Center for Inflammation Science & Systems Medicine

The mission of the Center for Inflammation Science and Systems Medicine is to advance understanding of the complex role of inflammation in health and disease and to develop innovative approaches for preventing, diagnosing and treating inflammatory conditions. The center’s director is physician-scientist, Joe G.N. “Skip” Garcia, M.D., an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine.

The center’s members include national leaders who are experts on aspects of inflammation that include blood vessel leakiness, detoxification metabolism and the design of therapeutics. The center’s faculty have produced a number of notable advances in the past 12 months. They include:

• Discovery of a critical molecular mechanism contributing to vascular leakage, resulting in a novel therapeutic target with drug development underway.
• Evidence that liver cancer can be sensitized to systemic therapies through the therapeutic inhibition of the protein NRF2.
• A discovery that modulation of microbiota imbalances may alleviate progression of pulmonary hypertension by targeting dysbiosis and reducing inflammation.
• Published results of a Phase 2a clinical trial showing efficacy of a novel “First in Class” therapeutic monoclonal antibody for acute critical illnesses.
• IND approval for a drug developed by center scientists, ALT-100, for progressive pulmonary fibrosis.

In addition, the center has taken many steps to further its mission of advancing education. Dr. Garcia was asked to serve as Florida Atlantic University’s medical school commencement speaker and to deliver several named lectures globally. He was selected to deliver the 2026 UF Graduate Commencement speech in May. In April, the Center held the Inaugural Progressive Pulmonary Fibrosis (PPF) Symposium: “Mapping Advances in PPF Pathobiology and Management,” bringing together investigators across the nation, clinicians and trainees to discuss emerging research in lung fibrosis.

The Moonshot New Medicine Initiative

The Moonshot New Medicine Initiative will empower high-risk, high-reward research by accelerating advances from bench discovery to potential new treatment. Areas of skill include:

• Identification and validation of lead compounds via assay development and screening campaigns.
• Refinement of drug-like molecules to improve selectivity, safety and potency.
• Analysis of mechanisms of action, drug metabolism and pharmacokinetics.
• Optimization through in vivo studies.

Initiative members are establishing collaborations throughout Florida and the nation and are pursuing advances in many areas of unmet medical need.

The UF RNA Genomic Medicine Center

The UF Center for RNA Genomic Medicine is focused on developing precision medicines for diseases with no cure or lacking disease-modifying therapies. By targeting ribonucleic acid rather than proteins alone, the researchers are expanding the scope of actionable biology.

The center integrates more than 15 laboratories across Jupiter and Gainesville, with shared core capabilities in long-read nanopore sequencing, chemical probing of RNA structure, and biophysical and structural analysis of RNA–small molecule interactions. A key initiative is the Druggable Transcriptome Project, which deploys these technologies to screen approximately 10 crowd-sourced RNA targets for small molecule binders and functional modulators. This effort both advances high-value targets and generates the datasets needed to power the artificial learning, or AI/ML, platform.

In collaboration with Chenglong Li, Ph.D., and Yanjun Li, Ph.D., center director Matthew Disney, Ph.D., and his group are developing AI/ML models for RNA-targeted drug discovery. These models require both binding and non-binding data, which the team is generating through focused library screening. The models are available to the UF community via HiPerGator. All targets are selected with a path to preclinical translation, enabling progression from binder discovery to optimization, structural understanding and advancement through DMPK and synthesis pipelines.

In parallel, Disney’s group is defining RNA structure at the isoform level using long-read sequencing and chemical probing. In collaboration with Elias Sayour, M.D., Ph.D., and Duane Mitchell, M.D., Ph.D., the group is applying these approaches to mRNA vaccines in immuno-oncology to understand and improve therapeutic efficacy, leveraging Gainesville’s GLP manufacturing capabilities. Overall, the center is building a collaborative platform to advance RNA-targeted therapeutics, train scientists and deliver new medicines to patients.

The Natural Products Discovery Center

The Natural Products Discovery Center at The Wertheim UF Scripps Institute holds the world’s largest collection of Actinobacteria. These are among the most prolific sources of biologically relevant microbial natural products. The collection was assembled by pharmaceutical companies over the last century, in pursuit of the next world-changing antibiotic or cancer medicine. The collection was moved to the Jupiter campus in 2019, enabling the academic community to plumb its genetic riches.

Chemist Ben Shen, Ph.D., one of the world’s leading natural products chemists, is sequencing the collection and creating a searchable database of new chemical entities. The resulting database is being accessed by research groups globally, with 1,150 users from 50 nations. Of these, 345 groups are supported by federal grants. Shen has signed 15 agreements to develop collaborative research programs. Shen’s own research program has found chemical leads for potential new cancer drugs, antibiotics and agricultural threats such as Florida’s citrus greening problem. The center’s overarching priority now is to preserve the resource in perpetuity.

ACADEMIC ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Wertheim UF Scripps scientists made major advances in 2025-2026, with many incorporating artificial intelligence and machine learning tools into their studies. They published — as lead authors — more than 70 peer-reviewed articles in high-impact journals. These included Nature, Cell, Journal of the American Chemical Society, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Immunity and Nature Communications, among others.

Education HIGHLIGHTS

A Launchpad for Science

In 2022 Dr. Wertheim challenged the institute to grow into a thrilling launchpad for science. It is that and more. In addition to igniting bold biomedical discoveries, the institute lights the spark for exciting STEM careers through school outreach, internship, graduate and postdoctoral training programs. In addition to Dr. Wertheim’s generosity, support from the William R. Kenan Jr. Charitable Trust and the Glenn W. Bailey Foundation fuels these unique, lab-based learning experiences for people of all ages.

The Glenn W. Bailey STEM Education and Outreach Programs

The Bailey Foundation’s generosity enables the institute to reach more K–12 students in the community. Wertheim UF Scripps scientists shared hands-on science experiences across Palm Beach County through partnerships with:

• Duncan Middle School
• 2025 Girls STEAM Day
• Girls in Aviation Day
• Epic Kids camp
• Visit to El Sol summer camp
• Tech Trek Florida 8th graders camp
• PACE center
• Palm Beach Central High School
• Brain Sparks table at the Cox Science Center
• King’s Academy

Postdoctoral Education

Postdoctoral researchers make vital contributions to the institute’s research. The institute showed its appreciation in September by celebrating the 16th annual National Postdoc Appreciation Week with career and science communications seminars, and fun social events.

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NOTABLE PUBLICATIONS

RNase L Regulates the Antiviral Proteome by Accelerating mRNA

• James Burke, Ph.D., Ciaran Seath, Ph.D., et al.
• Cell Reports | Viral Diseases

Design of a Small Molecule That Modulates the Protein Tau’s Pre-mRNA Splicing

• Matthew Disney, Ph.D., et al.
• ACS Chemical Biology | Dementia

Non-Muscle Myosin Light Chain Kinase Nitration in Regulation of Endothelial Cell Barrier Dysfunction

• Joe G.N. Garcia, Ph.D., Donna Zhang, Ph.D., et al.
• Cells | Inflammatory Diseases

eNAMPT/TLR4 Signaling Drives PAH Lung Vascular Remodeling

• Joe G.N. Garcia, Ph.D., et al.
• Cells | Lung Disease

Potential Role of Endothelial Ca2+ Signaling in Cellular Senescence and Inflammasome Activation

• Jason Yuan, Ph.D., Ayako Makino, Ph.D., Wei-Ting Wang, Ph.D., et al.
• American Heart Association Journals

Structural Determinants of Non-covalent PPARγ Inverse Agonism and Therapeutic Implications

• Patrick Griffin, Ph.D., et al.
• Nature Communications | Diabetes

Medicine on the Menu: When Illness Informs Appetite

• William Ja, Ph.D.
• PNAS | Appetite and Illness

Structural Insights into SHIP2 Reveal its Membrane Regulatory Mechanisms

• Tina Izard, Ph.D., et al.
• Protein Science | Cancer and Parkinson’s

An Assay for Mining Noninhibitory Enzyme Ligands from One Bead One Compound Libraries

• Thomas Kodadek, Ph.D.
• Journal of the American Chemical Society | Cancer

Determinants of Successful AAV-Vectored Delivery of HIV-1 bNAbs in Early Life

• Mauricio Martins
• Nature | HIV

Peptides Containing Imidazopyridinium (IP+) Unit Display Enhanced Passive Cell Permeability

• Thomas Kodadek, Ph.D., James Burke, Ph.D., et al.
• Journal of the American Chemical Society | Cancer

Design of a Bioactive Covalent Small Molecule Targeting a Riboswitch

• Matthew Disney, Ph.D., et al.
• Journal of the American Chemical Society

Development of Clinically Viable Non-Muscle Myosin Small Molecule Inhibitors

• Courtney Miller, Ph.D., Theodore Kamenecka, Ph.D., Patrick Griffin, Ph.D., Michael Cameron, Ph.D., Gavin Rumbaugh, Ph.D., Erica Young, Ph.D., Laszlo Radnai, Ph.D., et al.
• Cell | Addiction

Transcription Factors ETS1 and RUNX3 Specify Effector Memory and Tissue Resident Memory CD8 T Cell Formation

• Matthew Pipkin, Ph.D.
• Journal of Immunology | Cancer and Immunity

PKA Orchestrates Long-Range Lysosomal Vesicle Transport During Synaptic Maintenance

• Sathyanarayanan Puthanveettil, Ph.D.
• iScience | Learning and Memory

Disability-Causing Mutations in KIF11 Impair Microtubule Dynamics and Dendritic Arborization

• Sathyanarayanan Puthanveettil, Ph.D., Jenna Wingfield, Ph.D., et al.
• Nature Communications

The Endo-Gene Screen Platform Identifies Drug-Like Probes that Regulate Protein Levels

• Gavin Rumbaugh, Ph.D., Courtney Miller, Ph.D., Theodore Kamenecka, Ph.D., Louis Scampavia, Ph.D., Timothy Spicer, Ph.D., et al.
• Nature Communications

Second Generation Tiancimycin-Based Antibody–Drug Conjugates

• Ben Shen, Ph.D., Alexander Kiefer, Ph.D., et al.
• JACS Au | Cancer

Discovery of 5-Chlorotryptophan-Containing Antibiotics

• Ben Shen, Ph.D., Chantal Bader, Ph.D., et al.
• JACS Au | Antibiotics

µMap Photoproximity Labeling on the Cell Surface

• Ciaran Seath, Ph.D., Hong Kai Ng, Cameron Douglas Ph.D.
• Current Protocols | Cancer

High-Throughput Screening for SARS-CoV-2 Inhibitors

• Timothy Spicer, Ph.D., Thomas Bannister, Ph.D., Louis Scampavia, Ph.D., Emery Smith, et al.
• SLAS Discovery

Cell-Based High-Throughput Screening for Small Molecule Inhibitors of ATE1

• Timothy Spicer, Ph.D., Louis Scampavia, Ph.D., Claudia McCown, Ph.D., et al.
• SLAS Discovery

The p400 Complex Promotes HIV-1 Latency

• Susana Valente, Ph.D., Matthew Pipkin, Ph.D., Joseph Jablonski, Luisa Mori, et al.
• Nucleic Acids Research | HIV

Combining Spironolactone to Antiretroviral Therapy

• Susana Valente, Ph.D., Michael Cameron, Ph.D., et al.
• Emerging Microbes & Infections | HIV

Structural Proteomics Defines a Sequential Priming Mechanism for the Progesterone Receptor

• Patrick Griffin, Ph.D., Matthew Mann, et al.
• Nature Communications

Invention Story: Safer Anti-Inflammatory Medications

AI Helps Design Safer Steroids: Steroid medications like dexamethasone are indispensable anti-inflammatory drugs. Unfortunately, they can cause unwanted side effects, including bone loss, weight gain, muscle weakness and immune suppression. A multidisciplinary team led by Kendall Nettles, Ph.D., and Laura Solt, Ph.D., developed a structure- and machine learning-based approach to design new steroid scaffolds. The new drug-like molecules appear to limit side effects such as muscle atrophy and immune cell exhaustion.

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intellectual property

The Institute prioritizes moving scientific discoveries to the clinic, to benefit patients awaiting better treatment options. But this requires more than great science. It also requires commercial partnerships and a strong technology licensing effort. UF Innovate leads the commercialization of University of Florida discoveries, including those from The Wertheim UF Scripps Institute.

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advancement

The Wertheim UF Scripps Advancement team is committed to helping our donors accomplish their goals for improving human health and fostering
impactful STEM education opportunities, leaving a lasting legacy for the benefit of all.

Through events, individual outreach and strategic collaboration, the Advancement team connects philanthropists directly to the people working to make scientific breakthroughs a reality, people who also mentor the next generation of researchers, so that the innovative work continues far into the future.

In January, Alexandra Kelleher, MBA, stepped into the role of interim director of development. In this new leadership chapter, she is collaborating closely with colleagues and partners to thoughtfully position the institute for continued growth, impact and long term success.

“Every gift plants a seed of hope. By funding breakthrough research, you write the future story of a child’s recovery, a grandparent’s extra years and a world closer to conquering today’s incurable diseases.” — Alexandra Kelleher, MBA, Interim Director of Development

Ambassador Council Established

A highlight of the past year was the formal launch of the institute’s Ambassador Council, a group of community leaders devoted to helping further the institute’s lifesaving mission and goals, and amplifying its impact through philanthropy. Former Florida Senator and CFO Jeff Atwater said he is proud to lead the council with Vice Chair Marti LaTour. “It was exciting to participate in the institute’s launch as a state senator two decades ago,” Atwater said. “It’s even more inspiring now to return and see firsthand the incredible research advances that have emerged. The Ambassador Council is an important tool to help raise funds and elevate the awareness of this special place and all that’s happening to benefit Floridians and people everywhere.”

Read More

Emerging Scientists Recognized with Named Fellowships

Eleven graduate students and two postdoctoral researchers were awarded prestigious donor-funded fellowships in the 2025-2026 academic year. Fellowships allow early-career scientists to fully focus on their research, enabling them to pursue projects that address some of today’s most challenging diseases. “These fellowships give our researchers the time and space to pursue their most exciting ideas,” said Courtney Miller, Ph.D., Director of Academic Affairs. “By supporting our graduate students and postdocs, our donors are helping fuel discoveries that could have a lasting impact on human health. We are deeply grateful for their generosity, which gives our researchers the support and confidence to fully pursue their work.”

Read More

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Communications

The Office of Communications uses data, visuals and storytelling to connect with a wide range of audiences to help accomplish the institute’s strategic priorities. Through a variety of tactics, we share news of the Institute’s work and its impact, building appreciation for the good accomplished by public support for science.

Notably in 2025-2026, amid rapidly changing media consumption and search habits, the Institute launched a multi-channel marketing campaign centered on a series of five, 30-second video advertisements, each with its own message and website landing page. These advertisements, produced in collaboration with SCAD Media, focused on improving awareness of the institute’s brand and UF affiliation. In sum, the campaign garnered more than 5.4 million impressions, reaching approximately 850,000 individuals in key demographic and geographic areas.

Other marketing efforts included:

• Print advertising in the Palm Beach Charity Register and the Jupiter Magazine Charity Datebook.
• Sponsorships for the North Palm Beach Chamber of Commerce, BioFlorida Statewide Conference, Business Development Board of Palm Beach County and Sunposium Neuroscience Conference.
• Earned media through news releases and media outreach.
• Production of two new brochures focused on the institute’s core scientific services and its two graduate programs.

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Afterword