The San Diego-based Conrad Prebys Foundation has announced grants totaling $7 million to its inaugural all-women cohort of 14 Prebys Research Heroes.

The funding program, announced in December, is intended to address the critical gap in representation for women and underrepresented groups in medical research across the San Diego region. According to the foundation, 80 percent of post-doctoral researchers are women, while only 20 percent receive funding for their projects. To begin addressing this imbalance, the foundation awarded the program’s two-year grants of $500,000 each to women researchers who have demonstrated exceptional promise in areas critical to advancing medical science, including liver, gastric, and pancreatic cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, infectious disease, and mental health.

The inaugural recipients include Erica Ollmann Saphire, Sonia Sharma, and Sujan Shresta (La Jolla Institute for Immunology); Dannielle Engle and Tatyana Sharpee (Salk Institute for Biological Studies); Angelica Riestra (San Diego State University); Mia Huang, Xin Jin, and Lisa Stowers (Scripps Research Institute); Stephanie Fraley and Daniela Valdez-Jasso (University of California San Diego); Marygorret Obonyo (UC San Diego School of Medicine); and Rachel Blaser and Razel Bacuetes Milo (University of San Diego).

“Scientific progress is driven by the courage to explore the unknown and ask new questions,” said Prebys Foundation CEO Grant Oliphant. “Through this initiative, we’re not just funding research, we’re investing in a future where diverse perspectives lead to discoveries that benefit all of humanity.”

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