By Michelle Jaffee
As the first in his family to attend college, John Aaron Howell, Ph.D., long aspired to pursue a transformative science career. He was often motivated by the work of leading stroke researchers, such as University of Florida neuroscientist Eduardo Candelario-Jalil, Ph.D.
So, when Howell discovered the 2023-founded Gator NeuroScholars program — an enhanced postdoctoral fellowship at UF’s McKnight Brain Institute — he saw an opportunity to become part of the inaugural cohort and study with Candelario-Jalil. Now Howell is collecting data on post-stroke brain inflammation — conducting research with his mentor that may change the outlook for stroke patients.
“John Aaron has been an amazing addition to the lab,” Candelario-Jalil said of Howell, who holds a doctorate in neuroscience from the University of Mississippi Medical Center. “He’s not only involved in all of these projects and doing great science, but he is also very important in the interrelations of everyone in the lab and brings fresh energy.”
Attracting top talent
UF’s McKnight Brain Institute is the home base for Candelario-Jalil and 250-plus researchers, many of whom have been serving as invaluable mentors for fellows like Howell. Though the Gator NeuroScholars program — with its highly competitive stipend and mentorship opportunities — is fairly new, it is already serving as a roadmap for other premier institutions.
Howell and three other postdocs in the inaugural cohort — selected from nearly 50 applicants in an extensive evaluation process — are hard at work in McKnight Brain Institute labs, and one more fellow is expected to join the program in January.
Creating Gator NeuroScholars was the idea of Gordon Mitchell, Ph.D., the deputy director of the McKnight Brain Institute. Mitchell said he was inspired by two long-held observations: that postdoctoral trainees are integral to any major biomedical research program, and that competition to attract the best and brightest has greatly increased.
“We decided to do our own experiment,” said Mitchell, who is the program’s director. “We raised the stipend above the prevailing rate for up to three years. Also, very importantly, during their second year, we provide funds for experiments to collect preliminary data needed for grant applications that would launch their careers, such as the pathway-to-independence award from the National Institutes of Health.”
In addition to enhancing the pace of neuroscience research, this program is the McKnight Brain Institute’s latest step toward building a more robust scientific workforce, said Director Jennifer Bizon, Ph.D.
“Our Gator NeuroScholars are tackling aspects of diseases that affect quality of life for millions of people,” Bizon said. “Every day in the lab, they’re working alongside their mentors to make discoveries and advance understanding, while also working to become independent researchers with labs of their own.”
Inspiring research
The inaugural group’s research areas span from post-stroke neuroinflammation (Howell) to neuroimmune interactions in airway disease (Pedro Trevizan Bau, Ph.D.), neuroimmune regulation in Parkinson’s disease (Adithya Gopinath, Ph.D.), and links between the gut microbiome and neurological diseases (Andrea Merchak, Ph.D.).
For the program’s next phase, beginning in the summer of 2025, two new Gator NeuroScholars will be selected to focus on Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias. To keep pace and continue leading nationally, UF leaders plan to increase the fellowship stipend.
With a distinctive focus on community building, the inaugural cohort has formed a McKnight Brain Institute postdoc organization called Neuro(PD)2, for “neuroscience postdoctoral professional development.” Camaraderie extends outside the lab, with Howell and Merchak leading a kickball team called “Kick Astrocytes.”
“Normally, postdocs are secluded and they’re thrown in their labs all by themselves,” Howell said. “But we are not in this alone. And being a first-generation college student, I’m used to having to go into the unknown alone and having to figure it out by myself. But this is different in that we have the support system of the program, and also the support system of the other three people doing it with us.”
Encouraging mentorship
Through Gator NeuroScholars, Howell has not only built camaraderie with his peers but he has also discovered a remarkable number of parallels with his mentor, Candelario-Jalil.
Howell grew up in the Mississippi town of Bentonia, with its population of less than 400, and received a surprise recruitment letter while in high school from a math-and-science-focused public boarding school that was three hours from his home. At age 15, Howell went there — a similar path to the one taken by Candelario-Jalil. Raised in the small city of Amancio, Cuba, Candelario-Jalil likewise ventured out early to attend an advanced-placement public boarding high school.
Howell was always intrigued by science, absorbing every little detail, like words from a song about plants introduced by his sixth-grade science teacher that he can still recite today. Candelario-Jalil, meanwhile, was fascinated by chemistry — how one thing can lead to another in a reaction.
As undergraduates, both Howell and Candelario-Jalil went on to develop an interest in finding better ways to treat stroke.
Influential mentors shifted the trajectory for Howell, who had become enchanted with research. He took a class with speech-language pathology students called Neurogenic Disorders of Language, about clinical problems of stroke-induced aphasia, and he was hooked.
“Stroke is incredibly prevalent, and yet it’s been almost 30 years since tPA was approved,” Howell said of the tissue plasminogen activator class of medications — the thrombolytic clot-busting medications used to treat ischemic stroke, which is the most common type of stroke and occurs when a vessel supplying blood to the brain is blocked. “We haven’t had any significant pharmacological advances in acute ischemic stroke treatment since then.”
In the Gator NeuroScholars program, Howell is collecting data on post-stroke brain inflammation and its effects on the vascular system and various cell types. He is using this data in current grant applications, including one that on Dec. 12 produced his first response: news that he won fellowship funding from the American Heart Association to continue training with Candelario-Jalil.
“This is a launching step for him to figure out a niche for his research where he can actually take off,” said Candelario-Jalil, who joined the UF faculty in 2011, and this year, rose to full professor and was awarded a UF Research Foundation professorship.
Now the two researchers stand side-by-side in the lab, as Howell inches closer to the dream of building his own.
To learn more about the Gator NeuroScholars postdoctoral fellowship program and how to support educational opportunities at the McKnight Brain Institute, contact Caitie Deranek Stewart at stewartc1@ufl.edu.