Mohamad Abedi, an incoming assistant professor of bioengineering at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering, has been awarded a 2026 Michelson Prizes: Next Generation Grant to support his research developing next-generation immunotherapies for cancer.
Abedi’s research focuses on designing new proteins that control how cells communicate, using advances in computational protein design, machine learning, and synthetic biology. His research focuses on engineering synthetic, tumor-activated cytokines that integrate molecular sensing to restrict immune activation to diseased tissue, enabling potent anti-cancer responses with reduced systemic side effects.
Currently a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Washington in the laboratory of Nobel Laureate David Baker, Abedi will join UCLA Samueli in July 2026, where he will launch a research program focused on programmable protein-based signaling systems for immunotherapy.
The Michelson Prizes: Next Generation Grants are competitive $150,000 awards given annually to early-career investigators applying disruptive ideas and innovative approaches to advance human immunology, vaccine discovery, and immunotherapy research for major global diseases. Abedi is one of five awardees selected in 2026.
The program is administered by the Michelson Medical Research Foundation, established in 1995 to support scientists and engineers translating bold ideas into real-world therapies. The foundation has also recently committed major support to UCLA to help establish the California Institute for Immunology and Immunotherapy, a public-private collaborative network aimed at accelerating breakthrough immunological research.