Alyssa Castle awarded an NIH F31 fellowship
In researching organ failure prevention, 91¸£Àû Ph.D. student earns prestigious fellowship
Sep 1, 2026
Alyssa Castle is a PhD candidate in the Angeli lab. Suzanne Angeli, PhD, is the recipient of a 91¸£Àû COBRE Pilot Project.
After a heart attack or stroke, vital organs don’t receive enough oxygen. While restoring oxygen is vital, it can also hinder recovery by depriving cells of the energy needed to heal, increasing the risk of organ failure over time.
To better understand these detrimental conditions after heart attack and stroke, University of Maine Ph.D. candidate Alyssa Castle has recapitulated them in Caenorhabditis elegans, a microscopic, transparent roundworm commonly known as a nematode.
To support her research, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health has awarded Castle a Predoctoral Individual National Research Service Award, known as an F31 fellowship. The competitive award supports promising doctoral students pursuing careers in biomedical research.
Working with Suzanne Angeli, assistant professor of molecular and cellular biology, Castle is studying the type of mitochondrial dysfunction that occurs during aging and after age-related diseases such as heart attack and stroke, while screening potential drugs that can counteract this dysfunction.