Former Second Century Initiative Fellow Receives Prestigious Graduate NIH Fellowship
Former Second Century Initiative Fellow Receives Prestigious Graduate NIH Fellowship
Former Second Century Initiative (2CI) fellow and Ph.D. student in biology Alex Thomas has received a prestigious fellowship from the National Institutes of Health (NIH): the Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA).
Thomas, from Macon, Ga., was a 2CI Fellow in the Obesity Reversal and Neuroimmunology & Cardiometabolic Diseases cluster at Georgia State.
The NRSA that Thomas received is a highly competitive predoctoral fellowship awarded by the NIH. Thomas won this award based upon the submission of his research on ghrelin, a hunger hormone found in the stomach. With the support of his advisor Dr. Bingzhong Xue, a professor of biology, Thomas is attempting to discover how ghrelin is integrated by the part of the nervous system responsible for communication between the brain and other bodily extremities: the peripheral nervous system. He described this process as peripheral ground signaling and according to Thomas, it’s a process that has never been described before.