DBL Receives New NLM Funding

 

Posted Jul 21, 2026

 

DBL has received new funding from the National Library of Medicine (NLM), National Institutes of Health (NIH), through a multi-PI R01 project led by Dr. Juexin Wang at Indiana University, who serves as the Contact PI. Dr. Dong Xu at the University of South Florida is a collaborating PI on the project.

The project, “Identify Functional Modules in Spatial Omics Atlas with Cellular Community Motifs,” aims to develop computational and AI approaches for discovering functional modules from large-scale spatial omics data. A central concept is the identification of cellular community motifs—recurrent spatial organizations of interacting cell types that are associated with specific biological functions. By systematically identifying, characterizing, and organizing these motifs across spatial omics atlases, the project seeks to bridge cellular organization with tissue function and convert recurring spatial patterns into reusable biological knowledge.

The project builds on a research direction that originated nearly five years ago when Dr. Wang was a member of DBL. With the rapid growth of spatial omics technologies and AI, this new R01 provides an exciting opportunity to further develop the cellular community motif framework and advance computational approaches for understanding tissue organization and function.