NEW YORK(TIP): Indian American Shruti Naik, an assistant professor at NYU School of Medicine, has won the prestigious Blavatnik Regional Awards for Young Scientists in the “Life Sciences” category. A postdoctoral researcher at Stony Brook University Priyanka Sharma, another Indian American, received honorable mention in the “Chemistry” category.

The Blavatnik Family Foundation and the New York Academy of Sciences, award and support outstanding postdoctoral researchers in Tri- State of New York. The Foundation said in a press release that 125 nominated researchers competed for the nine spots.

The winners and finalists will be honored at the New York Academy of Sciences’ annual gala in New York on November 5, 2018.

Naik, who was nominated while she was doing a postdoctoral fellow at The Rockefeller University, is being recognized for “demonstrating that skin stem cells retain a ‘memory’ of previous inflammatory experiences, allowing for a more robust and rapid response to subsequent injury,” the release said.

Her groundbreaking work uncovered a new property of skin stem cells that explains how our largest and most vulnerable organ — the skin — responds to and remembers injuries and inflammatory stimuli such as injury or exposure to skin irritants. The skin is the body’s primary barrier to the outside world and it is critical to our survival that it remains intact.”

Her discovery that skin stem cells “can be sensitized to inflammation may aid the development of better treatment strategies for a variety of skin conditions,” it added.

Naik earned her bachelor’s degree in cellular and molecular biology from the University of Maryland College Park, and graduate and doctoral degrees from University of Pennsylvania.

Sharma, a polymer chemist, is being honored for “her pioneering work on the low-cost conversion of untreated biomass to carboxycellulose nanofibers, which have applications in biomedicine and in water purification in developing nations,” the release added.

The Blavatnik Family Foundation, founded by industrialist and philanthropist Len Blavatnik, supports educational, scientific, cultural, and charitable institutions in the United States and other parts of the world.

The New York Academy of Sciences, a 200-year-old nonprofit, advances scientific research, education, and policy.