Recent UTD Doctoral Grad Earns Howard Hughes Medical Institute for a Hanna H. Gray Fellowship.

A recent PhD recipient at the University of Texas at Dallas has been selected by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute for a Hanna H. Gray Fellowship.

It’s a remarkable achievement for Juliet Mwirigi, a pain specialist who journeyed from Kenya in East Africa to the Tarrant County city of Keller.

A year after earning her doctorate in cognition and neuroscience from the School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences at UTD, Mwirigi was selected by the Hanna H. Gray Fellows Program, which chooses early-career scientists who show exceptional promise of becoming productive academic scientists.

UTD said that each of the 25 fellows receives up to $1.5 million in funding over eight years, giving them the freedom to explore new scientific territory.

“Juliet exemplifies the type of professional success that’s possible when individual talent and drive combine with the solid foundation of scientific training available to UT Dallas students. It has been one of the biggest pleasures of my career to see Juliet grow into an incredible scientist, mentor and leader over the eight years I have known her,” said Ted Price, Ashbel Smith Professor of neuroscience.

From Intro to biology at TCC to postdoc fellow

Currently, Mwirigi is a postdoctoral research fellow at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. She has extended family in Texas, and she came to the state as a 21-year-old in 2013. She began taking introductory biology classes at Tarrant County College.

“I assisted my biology professor with the lab section of our class, and she picked up on my scientific abilities and curiosity,” Mwirigi said. “She recommended me for the Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation [LSAMP] program, which she coordinated at TCC.”

LSAMP is funded by the National Science Foundation, and via the program, Mwirigi found a summer research opportunity at UT Arlington, where she investigated evolutionary mechanisms in endangered lizards. Mwirigi presented her research at an LSAMP event at the University of Texas at El Paso, where she met UT Dallas’ LSAMP program coordinator, Juan González, who now is dean of graduate education.

“I vividly remember him saying, ‘You have to come to UTD. Great research is happening here,’” she said. “He played a pivotal role in my adjustment to UT Dallas. He was so generous with his time.”

UTD said that González, a professor of molecular and cell biology, was an adviser to Mwirigi after she transferred there in 2015 to work on her bachelor’s degree in biology on a pre-med track in the School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics. The university said that González provided a critical sounding board as she contemplated possible career paths.

“From the moment I met Juliet, I knew she was special,” said González, vice provost for global engagement and the Francis S. Johnson Chair for Graduate Education. “Her tenacity, discipline and intellectual capacity are unique. We are so proud of her success.”

UTD said that as a transfer student, Mwirigi received scholarships and grants that covered most of her expenses, while LSAMP facilitated a summer of study at University College London.

Getting to the root of pain

Mwirigi met Price in an undergraduate Neuroscience of Pain course, and he described her as “one of the most talented young scientists I have ever met.”

Price said: “She is passionate about her work, is brimming with great ideas, and has the perfect mix of competitive motivation and understanding of the importance of teamwork. Most importantly, she has an amazing intuition for what is important, where science and technology are going, and the ability to communicate her intuitions simply and clearly.”

Mwirigi said that Price’s mentorship has played the biggest part in her academic life.

“I wasn’t sure that pain research was the career path for me, but it quickly became apparent that I truly loved the work,” Mwirigi said. “Ted’s teaching was very different from what I’d experienced before. His ability to connect core neuroscience concepts with seminal papers in the pain field was inspiring and transformative.”

After receiving her bachelor’s degree, Mwirigi worked in Price’s lab as a research technician. Although medical school was her initial goal, Mwirigi changed course to pursue a PhD in cognition and neuroscience.

“Ted put me on high-impact projects, even as an undergrad,” she said. “He always asked, ‘What do you envision for yourself, and how can we get you there?’”

UTD said that Price’s research is aimed at discovering more effective treatments for chronic pain. Under Price’s guidance, Mwirigi’s doctoral research focused on investigating how pain is generated in human dorsal root ganglia sensory neurons located along the spinal cord and how chronic pain may be better treated.

“I now work at WashU in the lab where they pioneered the human dorsal root ganglia efforts,” she said. “While I was in Ted’s lab, a researcher from WashU met us at the Southwest Transplant Alliance during the height of the pandemic, guiding us through the extraction process for these nervous tissues.”

Her work centers on cell-membrane receptors, which control cell signaling and are key analgesic drug targets, UTD said. Using advanced tools, Mwirigi explores where these receptors are located, how they work and how they differ across species.

“We do not have good treatments for chronic pain because early research in animals does not often translate to humans,” she said. “To tackle this, I’m studying the biology of chronic pain in both rodents and human sensory neurons, focusing on shared mechanisms to develop better treatments.”

Mwirigi said she would like to be a principal investigator in her own lab. UTD said that funding from the HHMI fellowship will support that dream through a four-year postdoctoral phase and the first four years of a future faculty appointment.

To date, HHMI has committed more than $180 million to the Hanna H. Gray Fellows Program, supporting a growing scientific community of more than 100 fellows, 30 of whom have started their own labs. The program was established in 2016 and honors the contributions of Dr. Hanna Holborn Gray, one of the eight original trustees appointed in 1984, who served the institute for 28 years.