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Biomedical engineering Assistant Professor Brittany Hartwell receives Michelson Prize for excellence in vaccine research

Hartwell’s intranasal vaccine technology could help combat diseases like HIV and COVID-19

MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (01/26/2023)—University of Minnesota Twin Cities Biomedical Engineering Assistant Professor Brittany Hartwell is one of four researchers worldwide who has been awarded a 2022 Michelson Prize. Given by the Michelson Medical Research Foundation and the Human Immunome Project, the prize recognizes early-career investigators who represent “the next generation of innovators in human immunology and vaccine research.” 

Hartwell and the three other award winners will receive $150,000 to support their work. They will be honored at a virtual award ceremony on March 24, 2023.

Hartwell’s research combines perspectives from biomolecular engineering, drug delivery, and immunology to develop targeted immunotherapies and vaccines for various diseases.

Her Michelson Prize-winning research proposal revolves around her work on mucosal vaccines. In 2022, Hartwell was part of a team that developed a new way to effectively deliver vaccines through the nose, a method that could lead to better protection against diseases like HIV and COVID-19.

Hartwell received her bachelor’s degree in chemical and biological engineering from Iowa State University and her Ph.D. in biomolecular engineering from the University of Kansas. Before starting as an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota in 2021, Hartwell was a postdoctoral researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where her work on intranasal vaccines was featured on the cover of Science Translational Medicine and recognized with a Koch Institute Image Award.

Other winners of the 2022 Michelson Prize are Noam Auslander (The Wistar Institute), Jenna Guthmiller (University of Colorado), and Romain Guyon (University of Oxford).

Learn more about the Michelson Medical Research Foundation and the Human Immunome Project.

Read the award announcement on the Human Immunome Project website.

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