Since 2009, the Rita Allen Foundation has provided a special award for early-career leaders in basic pain research whose work holds high potential for uncovering new pathways to improve the treatment of chronic pain. The Foundation has awarded annually two grants or more in the amount of $150,000 over three…

Physician-scientists are the bridge between bench and bedside. What they observe in their patients becomes the subject of lab research, and what they learn from their lab research ideally translates into improved patient care. Stanford pain specialist Vivianne Tawfik, M.D., Ph.D., is a prime example of a physician-scientist whose robust…

2012 Rita Allen Scholar Sreekanth Chalasani first became interested in science as a child growing up in India. He was keenly aware of the world around him—when it would rain, he would wait for the earthworms and critters that come out after the storms to emerge,…

Xin Liu‘s science and math education began early. His parents would often quiz him with simple addition and subtraction questions, which Liu would happily work out by writing directly on the kitchen wall. Despite keeping an otherwise clean and tidy home, his parents were very tolerant…

“It was a memorable time for me,” remembers Agata Smogorzewska. “I was in the chemistry department. I don’t remember what I was doing there. I saw an advertisement on the wall to apply for a research semester at one of the Department of Energy laboratories. After learning…

Dorothea Fiedler grew up in Germany and had the opportunity to attend a British boarding school as an exchange student for one year. It was around this time that she found herself enchanted by chemistry. “Our chemistry classroom was a little bit like potions class, like…

“The parts I love about science are the opportunities to discover and mentor. The biggest highlight for a scientist is when we can combine the two—working with trainees who make discoveries,” explains Sarah Ross as she reflects on her accomplishments as a pain researcher. Ross…

How do pain mechanisms produce our sense of pain, and how do they differ in children, teenagers, and adults? In his lab in the Department of Anesthesia at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Professor Michael Jankowski investigates the pain mechanisms at work over the course of our lives. “We’re…

When Reza Sharif-Naeini was in high school, his dad had an inexplicable pain in his heel. Many doctors tried and failed to identify the cause of the pain. Frustrated, his dad visited a woman who prayed over the foot by candlelight. “Do you really believe in this?” Sharif couldn’t help…

Major grants will support seven pioneering early-career biomedical scientists The Rita Allen Foundation has named its 2025 class of Rita Allen Foundation Scholars, celebrating seven early-career leaders in the biomedical sciences whose research holds exceptional promise for revealing new pathways to advance human health. The selected…