HHMI Gilliam Fellowship Awarded to Eric Jordahl and Sonya Neal

Program will support research on the underlying mechanisms of pancreatic cancer

September 5, 2025

By Mario Aguilera

UC San Diego School of Biological Sciences Graduate Student Eric Jordahl and Associate Professor Sonya Neal have been named student-advisor recipients of the 2025 Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Gilliam Fellows Program.

School of Biological Sciences Graduate Student Eric Jordahl and Associate Professor Sonya Neal.

The HHMI Gilliam Fellows Program supports promising PhD students in their early research careers while fostering inclusive training environments.

Neal, a faculty member in the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology and an inaugural HHMI Freeman Hrabowski Scholar, studies the mechanisms related to misfolded proteins in cells and the medical importance linked with such potentially toxic threats. Her lab studies the rhomboid superfamily of proteins, which were recently discovered as regulators of a variety of membrane-related processes.

Jordahl, a fourth-year graduate student, conducts research in Neal’s lab on the underlying mechanisms of pancreatic cancer, a dangerous disease with a high mortality rate but limited treatment options. Jordahl studies how cancer cells regulate internal stress responses to grow faster and avoid therapeutics.

“My research focuses on a rhomboid protein, RHBDL4, which plays an important role in regulating how cells manage their stress caused by internal processes,” said Jordahl. “RHBDL4 has yet to be largely implicated in pancreatic cancer but has been shown to increase the growth of cancer cells, as well as help cancer cells avoid death.”

Jordahl’s PhD thesis investigations include molecular biology and biochemical techniques to identify potential interactors and target proteins of RHBDL4 in an effort to begin to characterize the protein’s role in pancreatic cancer.

“By better understanding how RHBDL4 helps cancer cells to grow better and die less, I can identify new potential targets for anti-cancer therapeutics, including RHBDL4, the proteins it interacts with and the proteins that it targets,” said Jordahl.

HHMI Gilliam Fellows funding supports both graduate students and their faculty advisors. Fellows receive up to three years of PhD dissertation support along with opportunities to connect with peers, program alumni and HHMI scientists. Gilliam Program students and advisors benefit from tailored professional development programming as part of HHMI’s scientific community.

Other 2025 student-advisor Gilliam Fellows include those conducting research in developmental biology, neuroscience, immunology, virology and other areas. See the complete list.

— With information from HHMI