Scripps Research Assistant Professors Chen Ran and Meng Zhang are recipients of the 2025 Baxter Young Investigator Awards. Each will receive $150,000 to support their research.

The Donald E. and Delia B. Baxter Foundation annually recognizes early-career researchers whose work in science and technology holds promise for improving patient care. Ran and Zhang join several other Scripps Research faculty members who have previously received this prestigious award.

With support from the Baxter Foundation, Ran aims to uncover how the brain distinguishes different pain signals from across the body. His lab will study visceral pain, which occurs in internal organs and is caused by conditions such as appendicitis. Unlike somatic pain—which is felt in the skin, muscle, joints and other soft tissues—the mechanisms of visceral pain aren’t well understood. Ran and his colleagues will use advanced brain imaging technology to visualize how visceral pain is represented in the brain and observe, in real time, how brain cells respond to different sensations from internal organs. The outcome of their studies could lead to more effective pain treatments.

“Visceral pain is one of the primary reasons patients seek medical attention,” says Ran. “A better understanding of how the brain processes pain signals could accelerate drug discovery and improve pain management for patients.”

Zhang will use cutting-edge technology to develop a detailed “cell atlas” that captures how brain tumors emerge, interact with the immune system and spread. This comprehensive map of a tumor’s cells and molecules could pave the way for better diagnostic tools and therapies tailored to each tumor’s unique genetic, immune and spatial features. Zhang’s lab will employ an innovative method called Multiplexed Error-Robust Fluorescence In Situ Hybridization (MERFISH) to capture cell interactions directly within tumor tissue—enabling more accurate detection and higher-resolution mapping of mutations and immune responses from a single tissue sample. The findings could help explain how brain tumors grow, why current treatments often fail, and ultimately guide the development of personalized therapies for patients with brain cancer.

“This multimodal approach will provide new insights into the complex cellular and molecular networks of brain tumors,” notes Zhang. “By decoding the complexity of brain tumors, we hope this work will lay the foundation for innovative diagnostics and therapies that address each tumor’s unique profile.”