Caltech and Cedars-Sinai Forge Research Partnership With Joint Grants and Faculty Positions

Caltech and Cedars-Sinai Health Sciences University announced a formal partnership this month that will create joint research grants, shared faculty and student appointments, and co-hosted scientific symposia between the Pasadena university and the Los Angeles medical center.

The agreement, announced February 10 in a Cedars-Sinai press release, pairs Caltech’s strength in engineering, computational modeling and quantitative biosciences with Cedars-Sinai’s clinical research infrastructure and diverse patient population. A pilot grant program will fund up to four collaborative research projects, with each institution contributing up to $125,000 per project.

“This new academic alliance between these premier Los Angeles institutions will advance scientific and academic achievements for the broader Los Angeles community and beyond,” said Peter L. Slavin, MD, president and CEO of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and Cedars-Sinai Health System, in the press release.

The partnership also includes joint translational discovery grants and joint student and faculty appointments, according to the announcement.

“Our partnership with Cedars-Sinai provides an important new pathway to clinical impact,” said Caltech Provost David A. Tirrell, PhD, in the press release.

The formal agreement grew from years of informal collaboration. Ueli Rutishauser, PhD, director of the Center for Neural Science and Medicine at Cedars-Sinai, has held a joint faculty appointment at Caltech in the Division of Biology and Biological Engineering. Ophir Klein, MD, PhD, executive director of Cedars-Sinai Guerin Children’s, recognized the potential for partnership when he joined Cedars-Sinai in 2022 and initiated co-hosted programs, according to the press release.

Those programs produced two joint symposia — one in 2024 focused on developmental and stem cell biology, and a second in 2025 on computational and experimental neuroscience.

“The opportunity to engage regularly through these events will lead to a more profound partnership between the two institutions and deeper connections among faculty and trainees,” Klein said in the press release.

The pilot grant program, called the Cedars-Sinai/Caltech Collaborative (C3) Research Pilot Grant Program, is administered through Caltech’s Merkin Institute for Translational Research. According to the institute’s website, each application requires one lead investigator from each institution, and early-career researchers are encouraged to apply.

“We are eager to stimulate interdisciplinary collaborations that support research and integrate biomedical, clinical, computational and engineering approaches,” said Jeffrey A. Golden, MD, executive vice dean of Research and Education and director of the Burns and Allen Research Institute at Cedars-Sinai, in the press release.

Shlomo Melmed, MB, ChB, executive vice president of Medicine and Health Sciences and dean of the Medical Faculty at Cedars-Sinai, said the institutions’ complementary strengths informed the partnership.

“Recognizing the unique strengths of each institution, we feel confident this partnership will benefit the greater field of science,” Melmed said.

The grant program will support one-year research projects with the option of a second year. Funds will be split between investigators at the two institutions, according to the Merkin Institute.

“Better healthcare for all requires bold innovation,” said Viviana Gradinaru, PhD, director of the Merkin Institute for Translational Research at Caltech and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, in the press release. “This partnership brings together Cedars-Sinai’s clinical leadership and Caltech’s scientific excellence to deliver it.”