UCSF School of Pharmacy Vice Dean of Research Tanja Kortemme, PhD, and Kyle Cromer, PhD, an assistant professor in the Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences (BTS), are among seven UCSF scientists recognized with prestigious National Institutes of Health (NIH) High-Risk, High-Reward Awards for 2025.  

The awards honor exceptionally creative scientists pursuing highly innovative research with the potential for broad impact in biomedical, behavioral, or social sciences. Managed by the NIH Common Fund, the program offers funding through four distinct awards that encourage unconventional ideas by not requiring preliminary data.

Kortemme, a professor in the Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences, received an NIH Director’s Pioneer Award for her efforts to create new error-correction systems for synthetic biology using artificial intelligence.  

Her work seeks to design “programmable” biological quality-control mechanisms inspired by nature’s own precision, advancing understanding of how proteins work and our ability to engineer them for health applications. “By building new biological functions,” Kortemme says, “we can begin to reveal how design principles shape the systems-level behavior of life itself.”

Cromer, who holds joint appointments in UCSF’s Department of Surgery and BTS and is a member of UCSF’s Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regeneration Medicine and Stem Cell Research, received an NIH Director’s New Innovator Award for his work on gene-editing strategies to treat sickle cell disease. His research aims to enable bone marrow to produce healthy red blood cells without the need for intensive chemotherapy, bringing curative therapies closer to patients and potentially transforming how genetic diseases are treated.