Ph.D. student Grace Rilee will serve as principal investigator on a two-year F31 award from the National Institute for Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR) for her project titled "Exploration of the role of FOSL1-mediated liquid-liquid phase separation in cisplatin resistance in HNSCC."

Rilee, a student in the Ph.D. in pharmaceutical sciences program with a concentration in medicinal chemistry advised by Jiong Li, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the Department of Medicinal Chemistry and faculty member in VCU's Center for Drug Discovery, is the second in the history of the Department of Medicinal Chemistry to earn this prestigious award.