Building the Future, Together

Receiving an NIH grant is much more than securing funding for a research project. For me, it marks the beginning of a new chapter for the Gestal Lab, one filled with opportunities to grow, mentor, discover, and make a greater impact.

This award represents years of perseverance and the collective effort of many people. It belongs to the trainees who spent countless hours at the bench asking difficult questions and pushing experiments one step further. It belongs to the mentors who challenged my ideas, shared their wisdom, and helped shape me into the scientist I am today. It belongs to the colleagues who became friends, offering encouragement, honest feedback, and support during the moments when the path forward seemed uncertain. Science is never the work of one person. It is built by communities that believe in each other and in a shared goal of improving human health.

This support is also an investment in our institution, LSU Health Shreveport. It will allow our laboratory to expand, recruit and train more students, create new opportunities for young scientists, strengthen collaborations, and continue building an environment where curiosity and innovation thrive.

Most importantly, this award represents confidence in our vision. It allows us to pursue new strategies to develop immunotherapies that improve the clearance of respiratory infections while preventing the long-term complications that too often follow infection. Every experiment, every collaboration, and every trainee brings us one step closer to that goal.

I am incredibly excited about what lies ahead. New projects, new trainees, new collaborators, and new ideas are already taking shape.

This is not the finish line. It is the beginning of something even bigger.

To everyone who has been part of this journey, thank you for believing in our science. I cannot wait to see what we accomplish together.