Three young assistant professors have received research awards from the Pew Charitable Trusts to pursue research in cell biology, neuroscience and cancer.

Gloria Brar and Michael Yartsev were among 22 Pew scholars in the biomedical sciences announced June 9 by the trusts, while Dirk Hockemeyer was one of five selected as a Pew-Stewart Scholar for Cancer Research.

Brar and Hockemeyer are UC Berkeley assistant professors of molecular and cell biology, while Yartsev is an assistant professor of bioengineering and a member of the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute.

The Pew Scholars Program in the Biomedical Sciences supports promising early-career scientists in the health sciences. Each scholar will receive four years of flexible funding to pursue foundational, innovative research.

“For more than 30 years, The Pew Charitable Trusts has proudly supported outstanding biomedical researchers at the start of their careers, encouraging the kind of creativity that leads to remarkable discoveries,” said Rebecca Rimel, president and CEO of the Pew Charitable Trusts, in a statement. “The members of this exemplary group join a community of scientists that they will learn with, and learn from, for the rest of their lives.”

The Pew-Stewart program supports outstanding young researchers with innovative approaches and ideas.

Brar studies the genes that regulate meiosis, the process of cell division that leads to sperm and egg cells in organisms that reproduce sexually.

Yartsev is investigating the neural basis of spatial habit learning using free-flying echolocating bats.

Hockemeyer is studying the development and pathophysiology of the intestinal epithelium using a new method he developed for generating three-dimensional cultures of human intestinal tissue.

Check out the Pew website for more information about the new biomedical scholars.