August 18, 2025 – Alexandria, Virginia
The National Psoriasis Foundation – the worldwide nonprofit leader in psoriatic disease research funding – is pleased to announce its continued support of high-quality research supporting the 125 million people living with psoriatic disease.
NPF’s 2025–2029 Strategic Plan emphasizes advancing access to care and expanding research into psoriatic disease. This year, the NPF dug deeper into the needs of patients living with psoriasis or psoriatic arthritis, or both. Evidence from this study showed that overall, patients are trying a wide range of treatments to help them live normal lives, some noting that even the severity can range from almost remission to crippling in their day to day lives. Many noted some medications worked for them and then stopped, and some didn’t work nearly as well as hoped. Among the learnings was this overarching theme of needing more: needing to know more, needing more options, needing more care opportunities, needing more from their treatment teams. And all in a time when those options to research and discover more are reduced, making the 2025 research cycle critical.
“When people ask me about the work we do at the foundation, discussing advancing the field of psoriatic disease research is at the heart of our mission,” shares Leah M. Howard, J.D., the President and CEO of NPF. “It is important to me and the foundation to consistently be at the forefront of the research landscape, funding external research and conducting our own patient-centered programs. Historical advances in psoriatic disease research are challenged by a changing landscape. NPF’s commitment to research is more important than ever. Enabling this crucial research helps patients, providers, and researchers all get one step closer to a cure.”
Pushing further, NPF also surveyed the researcher community to see if they had experienced any impacts related to the federal cuts in funding; approximately 1/3 of respondents noted that they had. Some shared that their NIH R01 opportunities had been withdrawn, others noted that they had lost crucial funding for lab support and the development of new projects. One respondent even shared that graduate students and early career researchers had been affected due to reduced class sizes and hiring freezes. Some of the respondents shared that their outlook on federal funding in the future was poor, with concerns about whether they will continue to be able to fund research and maintain labs.
Patients need more, and researchers are looking to provide it, but they need the funding. This 2025 funding cycle was highly competitive but ultimately supports a continuum of research designed to explore new areas of biology and treatment approaches that represent new paths to a cure for psoriatic disease. These awards range from early career investigators, who can grow and sustain the clinical and research workforce dedicated to finding a cure, to those in early-stage and translational research, which are likely to lead to clinical interventions. This commitment to advancing research, even in challenging times, has led to over 600 publications, contributing thousands of original insights toward understanding and treating psoriatic disease.
Funding this year spans 4 countries internationally, with additional institutional collaborations. Topics include inflammation, disease models and progression, vascular health, neuroimmunology, potential treatment targets, and more.
“Our mission is to direct the future of research in psoriatic disease by supporting the researchers. Everything we do is under the goal of curing psoriatic disease. In challenging times for researchers, these awards sustain the new ideas that propel us closer to cures,” says Guy Eakin, Ph.D., Chief Scientific and Medical Officer for NPF.
Congratulations to this year's Grant and Fellowship funding awardees.
2025 NPF Research Grant and Fellowship Awards
Bridge Grant
Bridge Grants provide a critical year of gap support to researchers who have submitted meritorious but unfunded applications to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) or similar funding body. This year of additional funding allows investigators to develop additional preliminary data to support a resubmission to the NIH. Between 2017 and 2021, all NPF Bridge Grant recipients received funding upon resubmission, leveraging $850,000 in NPF funding into $6,376,496 in subsequent funding.
This year, Bridge funding ranges from helping researchers examine inflammatory pathways to intercepting cellular mechanisms of action that could help inform future therapies.
Recipients:
- Eynav Klechevsky, Ph.D., – Washington University in St.Louis
- Matthew Alexander, M.D. – Vanderbilt University Medical Center
- Michael Garshick, M.D. – NYU Langone Health
- Bahram Razani, M.D., Ph.D. – The Regents of the University of California, San Francisco
These awards have been generously supported by the David Schwartz Foundation.
Discovery Grant
Discovery Grants fund researchers while they explore preliminary ideas and conduct proof-of-concept experiments. The goal is to stimulate the development of new research programs in the field of psoriatic disease capable of competing for long-term funding from the National Institutes of Health or similar agencies in the future.
The Discovery Grants awarded this year include exciting research examining the link between mental health and psoriasis, as well as taking a closer look at some novel pathways that may reduce inflammation.
Recipients:
- Jack Major, Ph.D. – Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
- Katerina Oikonomopoulou, Ph.D. – York University
- Matthew Vesely, M.D., Ph.D. – Yale University School of Medicine
Translational Research Grant
Translational Research Grants fund research projects that focus on the rapid translation of basic scientific discoveries into clinical applications.
These translational research grants are exploring how to block a protein that can worsen psoriasis, what drives certain patients to develop liver conditions, and a potential way to utilize gene expression.
Recipients:
- David Granville, Ph.D. – University of British Columbia
- Doquyen Huynh, M.D. – University of California, San Diego
- Sulev Koks, M.D., Ph.D. – Murdoch University
These awards have been generously supported by the Boyce Family Fund.
Early Career Research Grant
Early Career Research Grants support early-career researchers, integrating them into the psoriatic disease research community of scientists, clinicians, and patients. Recipients are expected to be well-positioned to apply for future funding and build long-term careers in psoriatic disease research. Early Career Research Grants awardees have 100% demonstrated career retention.
This year’s recipients are investigating important issues such as how proteins in the skin may influence inflammation, how a particular set of cells is driving inflammation, and immune system checkpoints.
Recipients:
- Ricard Garcia-Carbonell, Ph.D. – The Scripps Research Institute - La Jolla
- Yu-San Kao, Ph.D. – The Trustees of Princeton University
- Ummugulsum Yildiz-Altay, M.D. – Yale University
These awards have been generously supported by the Sue Shoenberg Endowment for Early Career Research Grants.
Fellowships
Psoriatic Disease Research Fellowships provide support to eligible institutions to develop and enhance the opportunities for physicians training for research careers in academic dermatology and rheumatology.
Fellowship recipients have presented at international and domestic conferences, including NPF Research Symposia, American Academy of Dermatology Annual Meeting, Society of Investigative Dermatology, the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology, and more.
Recipients:
- Jack Fite, M.D. – University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center
- Megan Hauptman, M.D. – University of Michigan Medical Center
- Nicole Johnson, B.S. – The Regents of the University of California, Los Angeles
- Ravi Ramessur, Ph.D. – University of Pennsylvania
NPF awards translational, discovery, early career, and fellowships annually. Bridge grants are awarded bi-annually in alignment with the NIH timeline.
Additional Research Funding
NPF is also continuing work in many key areas, including the PsA Diagnostic Test Grant as well as the prevention of psoriasis and comorbidities. Those projects, in addition to many other successful NPF-funded investigations, were made possible by the generosity of several individuals and organizations.
These awards have been generously supported by Bill and Jodi Felton, Michael Graff & Carol Ostrow, Virginia Morris Kincaid Charitable Trust, Sara Lee and Barry Larner, Michael & Carol Laub, Robert E. Ringdahl Foundation, Fred and Joan Weisman, Karen and Dale White, Dean Pollack and Jessica Falcone, Alan and Bari Shaffran, Walton Family Foundation, Xiaotong Zhang, and anonymous donors.
Learn more about current NPF-funded research projects.
About the National Psoriasis Foundation
The National Psoriasis Foundation has served the community of people impacted by psoriatic disease since 1967 with patient support, advocacy, research, and education. The mission of NPF is to drive efforts to cure psoriatic disease and improve the lives of more than 8 million individuals in the United States affected by this chronic immune-mediated disease. Learn more at psoriasis.org.