Drug development is among the slowest, most failure-prone processes in modern science, with . Today, artificial intelligence methods have accelerated the first step — plucking promising molecules out of endless possibilities — but countless challenges remain. A successful drug must be not only safe and effective, but also able to bypass the body’s defenses and reach the right target.

Most drug candidates fail such optimizations. That’s where a new 91���� institute at the 91���� has focused its attention. Housed in the UW School of Pharmacy, the brings together experts in artificial intelligence, drug discovery, pharmacology, data science and biotechnology to ease the bottleneck between promising molecules and successful drugs.��

The Institute opened in July 2026 and is led by three UW faculty members: , an associate professor of medicinal chemistry who oversees the Institute’s AI-enabled molecular design; , the Milo Gibaldi Chair of Pharmaceutics and expert in drug metabolism and disposition; and , a professor of psychiatry and behavioral science in the UW School of Medicine, who leads drug discovery, translation and commercialization efforts.

UW News spoke with the three co-directors about why drug candidates fail, how AI is speeding drug development and how I2D3 hopes to help get drugs to market more quickly.

What separates a promising molecule from a full-fledged drug? What properties need to be considered, and how can a developer work toward them?

Gaurav Bhardwaj: It really depends on the disease indication you are targeting and the therapeutic modality. Let’s say you have a promising molecule that interacts with the disease-causing protein. Delivery becomes equally important — do we need an orally delivered drug? Do we need to cross the blood-brain barrier? If the disease requires daily dosing, then injectable or IV methods aren’t optimal. If it’s delivered orally, then the molecule needs to be able to get across the gut barrier, and also needs to be stable enough that it doesn’t get chewed up by the body. It also needs to stay in the body for a reasonable time. A successful drug molecule has to meet all these and more criteria, and ultimately all these criteria are encoded by the sequence and structure of the molecule.

The Institute is devoted to aspects of drug development that are often overlooked. What problem do you see the Institute being able to help solve?��

GB: Traditional drug discovery and development is a trial-and-error-based process. Either you find a useful molecule in nature and spend years optimizing it for human use, or you create many random combinations of molecules and hope that one of them has the function you need. Both of these approaches are highly unsuccessful, which has created a bottleneck.

Now the field is also focusing on an idea called rational drug design. It started long before AI but is now becoming even more common. People are using AI methods to design new molecules. However, a lot of that work has focused on the first step — finding a molecule that binds to a specific protein, or has a specific function in the body. That’s still not a drug, it’s just more candidates.

The bottleneck has now shifted. It’s no longer finding that first molecule, but now, how do you add all the other drug-like properties? That’s what the Institute is trying to do. Let’s build the models that ultimately make molecules that are going to be successful all the way through the drug development pipeline.��

Marco Pravetoni: I see our work also as accelerating discovery. I work on substance use disorders, and my lab develops vaccines, antibodies and next-generation antibody-like molecules that target drugs in the body. With these new tools, instead of working to design 10 antibody candidates in a lab, we could design 1,000 or more, and then we can accumulate enough data to reduce any risks, so that what we bring to clinical trials is more likely to be successful. AI can do a lot of that.

How can you make it more likely that a drug candidate succeeds in trials?��

Nina Isoherranen: Part of it is predicting what’s going to happen to a drug in humans before it’s ever given to humans. That should increase the success rate and eliminate the waste of doing a lot of unsuccessful trials.��

We can also build machine learning and AI approaches to predict drug disposition in an individual person. What we talk about today are ‘digital twins,’ which refers to a computational model of the individual patient and their characteristics. For example, how does your kidney function? What is your body mass index? And so forth. Then we generate a digital version of you. We can then predict how a certain drug would behave in your body and build the best strategy.��

There’s also an access-to-treatment question here. Pregnancy is a great example — we often don’t know how drugs work in pregnant women because we’ve never done trials. To be safe, we say that pregnant people shouldn’t take those drugs, but that means they don’t have access to a potentially hugely beneficial medication. If we can use AI and machine learning to predict how pregnant people respond to medications and how their bodies handle drugs differently from nonpregnant people we can make more medications accessible

Now with AI and machine learning, I think we can get to a place where we can truly sample the full space of possibilities.��

How can the methods you’re building help with these individualized treatments?��

NI: We know that drugs behave differently in different people. Even if we give them the exact same drugs and concentrations, people may still have different responses because of factors inherent to our bodies.

During drug development the candidate drug needs to be studied to see responses in different populations. Before you get a drug approved, you need to understand how liver disease, for example, is going to change exposure to that drug and whether you need to change the dosing. There’s a lot of guidance on drug interactions. Pharmacists manage drug interactions all the time, but it gets very complicated when you combine multiple patient factors. Now, if we have good predictive tools, we can predict what’s going to happen without having to do trials.��

The ultimate goal here is to be able to predict, using model computational tools, what’s going to happen in individual humans before you ever give them a drug. What’s the right dose? The right timing?��

UW has established itself as a leader in these fields already. I’m thinking especially of the UW Medicine , whose director, , recently won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. How does I2D3 fit into the broader UW ecosystem?��

MP: IPD is a world leader in designing novel proteins, and the UW also has outstanding capabilities in clinical testing and implementation through the . However, there remains a critical translational space between discovery and clinical application —�� one that focuses on the pharmaceutical development needed to turn promising innovations into viable therapeutic products. That’s where I2D3 can play a leading role.

For example, when 91����ers at IPD develop a new protein, I2D3 can partner with them early to address formulation, manufacturability, stability, delivery, and other key pharmaceutical considerations that are essential for advancing a discovery toward the clinic and ultimately the marketplace. I2D3 would serve as a core translational partner, helping bridge the gap between innovation and implementation.

IPD brings unmatched strengths in protein design, ITHS provides expertise in clinical translation, and I2D3 contributes the drug development and pharmaceutical sciences capabilities needed to move discoveries across the translational continuum. Together, these organizations can create a powerful and highly integrated ecosystem.

For more information, visit . To reach the 91����ers, contact Alden Woods at acwoods@uw.edu.

The 91���� is exploring a significant redevelopment and expansion of UW Medical Center–Montlake, the Magnuson Health Sciences Center and west campus.

To kick off this potential 10-year effort, the UW Real Estate office is issuing a Phase-1 request for proposals for a one-year exercise to find a development advisor that will, in collaboration with the UW, deliver an executable strategy for the project. This Phase-1 work would include a year-long process to identify potential capital funding sources, assess the existing south campus buildings and infrastructure, and determine a realistic program and plan for expansion and redevelopment.

The UW’s current facilities cannot meet the demand for health care as more patients turn to UW Medicine for cancer, heart and transplant treatments, among other care needs. UWMC–Montlake currently operates with a shortage of beds, and that shortage is expected to grow to nearly 300 by 2040.

Additionally, modern biomedical 91���� and health 91����, such as the Institute for Protein Design led by Nobel Prize winner David Baker and the Brotman Baty Institute for Precision Medicine require expanded facilities to continue delivering new treatments and cures.

Teaching, 91���� and clinical facilities in the Magnuson Health Sciences Center are split across many floors and wings, and many of those spaces need replacement or will soon. The review will also include close consultation with the schools of Dentistry, Nursing and Pharmacy to determine the need for improved teaching, clinical training, 91���� and dental care facilities.

A four-month initial feasibility study conducted by Seattle architectural and design firm NBBJ, along with the UW Medicine Strategy Team, determined the clear need for a new hospital tower at UWMC–Montlake with capacity for up to 400 additional beds. In a separate assessment, it was determined a new electrical substation is needed, as the existing substation is at capacity.

The RFP states a clear preference for limiting situations where a unit has to move more than once and for minimizing disruptions to teaching, 91���� and patient care. If the project proceeds, the preferred project timeline includes the construction of new, permanent space for any units that may need to move, to be completed in approximately five years, at which point the existing hospital tower and portions of the Magnuson Health Sciences Center would be demolished and replaced. If the project proceeds, any units that are impacted will be supported through the project, including if there is a need to move to temporary space during construction.

An important component of the RFP is the development of a structured, multi-source funding plan for the entirety of the project. Potential funding sources include, but are not limited to, philanthropy, government funding, public-private partnerships and ground leases. If the year-long review determines that some aspects of the program are not feasible, the team will provide an alternative plan.

For more information, contact Victor Balta at balta@uw.edu.

Arguably the most important crop on Earth, rice has been cultivated for roughly 10,000 years. It’s a staple food for more than half the global population, with about 90% cultivated and consumed in Asia.

But a new 91���� study, recently published in , warns that this essential crop is in danger. Due to rising temperatures driven by climate change, projections show that Asia’s major rice-producing regions may soon pass the thermal limits that have remained consistent throughout the crop’s history.

Using satellite maps, agricultural records, archaeological data and climate projections, 91����ers found that domesticated Asian rice has never thrived where the mean annual temperature exceeds 28 degrees Celsius — 82 degrees Fahrenheit — or where the warm-season maximum temperature exceeds 33 C, or 91 F.��

Climate projections estimate that, by the end of this century, the land area exceeding these temperature limits could expand by 10 to 30 times in Asia’s major rice-producing nations. This would create unparalleled challenges in a region where more than a billion people rely on rice cultivation for their livelihoods. While rice breeding programs offer some hope, the 91����ers found that even the major rice subspecies won’t thrive in the projected temperatures.

UW News spoke with , an archaeologist, UW associate professor of anthropology and co-author of the study, about the 91���� and what it means for the future.

How did you become interested in this topic?

JDG: A lot of my 91���� focuses on how climatic events have shaped people’s ability to farm or grow crops in environments around the world. One of the places I previously worked was the Tibetan Plateau, and some of my early 91���� documented that there was a cooling event around 4,000 years ago that halted Tibetans’ ability to grow two critical crops, which were . They shifted to wheat and barley after that, and they’ve been growing them ever since.

I became interested in applying the same 91���� to understand how our current unprecedented moment of climate change may impact crop distribution. I work in Asia, particularly China, and I’ve worked on rice for most of my career. Our team found that the same cooling event that affected Tibet had a major impact on rice genetics. In fact, it led to the development of cold-adapted temperate rice, which is the same type of rice that people rely on for subsistence today in Japan, northern China and Korea. It’s the short-grained sticky rice that’s cold tolerant, as opposed to the original form of rice that was a semi-subtropical cultivar.��

We then became interested in the types of challenges rice will face moving forward. We pulled records of everywhere that rice has ever been cultivated in Asia throughout human history — and all the climatic conditions under which it’s been cultivated — and compared that to the types of situations that we’ll face under global warming today.

What did you find as you started looking toward the future?

JDG: Basically, we found that large areas that are major rice producers are going to face rising temperatures that are unprecedented in the history of rice cultivation. Over the course of the past 10,000 years and its domestication, rice has been adapted to cooler conditions and not to warmer conditions. We used a wide variety of forward-looking climate projection models, and all of those models seem to converge on the same point: Large parts of primary rice growing regions around the world are expected to surpass the known temperature limit where these crops can be cultivated.

I use the word unprecedented, and I don’t use it lightly. Another term I could apply to this would be no analog. There is no known situation over the course of rice’s cultivation where rice grew in regions which had such high mean annual temperatures. This crop has simply never experienced this before, so there is no data for how it will react. But we do have thousands of years of data saying that to date, it hasn’t been cultivated in temperatures like these. In fact, there are only two parts of the world today that have mean annual temperatures that are similar to those that we expect will occur in major rice producing regions of the world: the Sahara desert and parts of the Arabian peninsula. There is a reason these areas are largely desert. Most people think about water but temperature is a critical reason, too.��

I can’t underscore enough how writing this study felt. Millions of people live in this region and depend on temperatures as we have known them to continue to live and farm there. This is beyond devastating, and we are beginning to see the impacts of processes like this already.��

What are some recent examples of rising temperatures causing problems with crop cultivation?

JDG: In 2023, of all non-basmati rice. Sona masoori rice, or the type of rice grown across most of low altitude South Asia, had such great losses due massive heat waves that the government stopped all exports. People were panic buying rice that year, even in the U.S.

With climate change, the temperature is not increasing in a completely linear fashion. But the average is increasing over time. As the average increases, there’s a higher probability of these extreme events occurring. It’s already happening in our lifetime, and this study is solid evidence for why addressing climate change should be an absolute top priority for all of us. Over a billion people on the planet are rice cultivators, and that is their primary means of livelihood. For a fourth of the world’s population, rice is a main staple in the diet.

We could have written this paper for so many crops, including wheat, corn and others. What we’re dealing with here is that plant photosynthesis just doesn’t function well above those temperature limits. We’re running into fundamental limits of photosynthetic biochemical process plants, which are temperature limited. There are not that many types of plants that can sustain life under conditions like that, and certainly they are not our major economic plants.��

We live in an era where we have all experienced climate change. In 2026, most of the globe has experienced an extreme heat event. We understand how difficult this is for us as mammals to live through, and yet some of us have the privilege of escaping indoors or even to air conditioning. Plants, on the other hand, cannot move to escape the heat. I’m sure many here in Seattle remember the . The plants in our yard are still recovering from those short few days. That event caused billions of dollars in losses in the agricultural sector in the Pacific Northwest. Some berry and soft fruit farmers experienced nearly 100% crop losses. By midcentury, conditions like this could occur every five to 10 years and could have a huge impact on all plants, including the ones we rely on for food.��

This also critically highlights why we need to expand rather than contract our dietary breadth. Sadly, the opposite of this is happening due to industrial farming practices. Humanity is relying on an increasingly narrow range of species. We are essentially putting all our eggs into one or just a few baskets when we need crop diversity.��

What do climate projections take into account, and what can be done to change the path we’re currently on?

JDG: For this study, we used multiple climate projections based on what different countries’ carbon commitments will be moving forward. What we found is that even for climate scenarios where there is a strong global commitment to sustainability-focused growth, international cooperation, and an eventual transition to net-zero emissions, major rice growing regions are still impacted (SSP 1-2.6 on our maps). These impacts expand dramatically with other climate scenarios which assume less concerted action, and sadly this is consistent with where we are headed today which is probably somewhere between SSP 3- 7.0.

Our actions can change the course of what scenario we might be looking at with these maps. We have the technology to move forward with more climate-friendly solutions and many countries around the world are trying to take the lead while we lag behind. For instance, China, where I work, has made massive investments in public transit and railways. Nearly everybody in China drives an electric vehicle. I did not see a single gas-powered car last time I was there. We could do that here at home, and we’re not. Our politicians are making active choices to halt this type of action and at the same time we have the highest per capita emissions in the world. We could and should do much more. It can feel hopeless, particularly for those of us who live in a country where action from our politicians has been in a decades-long gridlock for meaningful change. But we shouldn’t stop lobbying for change.��

We can also look at what steps we can make in our own lives to lower emissions. It’s worth noting that the vast part of emissions come from the top 1%, and that portion of the population can really drive meaningful personal action. Simple steps for those that have the means and access can be switching to solar if you own a home or taking public transit where you can.Asking honestly, how am I contributing to this and what can I do differently can always help. For me, the single largest part of my personal emissions was flying and I ceased a large part of all my noncritical travel for that reason. Emissions from short-distance flights and private jets contribute hugely to this issue.

No country will be immune to a crisis of this magnitude, and it is an issue that deserves global attention. While the impacts may initially appear distant to readers from the U.S., our interconnected economies mean that we will also be affected through global trade systems and shifting agricultural dynamics. The same environmental and socioeconomic processes influencing rice production in Asia will have comparable implications for crops such as corn in lower-latitude regions of the U.S. and even here in the Pacific Northwest, as we saw with the last heat dome. Addressing these challenges requires recognizing their global scope and engaging proactively with the evidence before us.��

Other co-authors of the study were of the University of Florida and and of New York University.��

The study was funded in part by grants from the Zegar Family Foundation and the NSF Plant Genome Research Program.

For more information, contact d’Alpoim Guedes jguedes@uw.edu.

President Robert J. Jones, Provost Tricia Serio and more than two dozen new 91���� faculty toured Washington state last week on the annual Faculty Field Tour.

The five-day bus tour departed from the Burke Museum in Seattle on June 15 and made stops at historic sites, the state capitol, health clinics, vineyards, farms, cities and towns throughout the state.

Jones met the group in Richland to participate in a fireside chat. The following day, the UW president joined them at Schoesler Farms, the Ritzville wheat farm owned by Sen. Mark Schoesler, a Republican, and his family. Jones, an agronomist, was delighted to spend time with new faculty, meet Schoesler and get a hands-on tour of the wheat farm.

“We are a state university. We have an obligation on both sides of the mountains,” Jones said. “We have breadth that runs the entire state. And on this tour, these relatively new faculty members have a chance to experience that.”

UW’s Faculty Field Tour began more than 30 years ago to foster connection between new faculty and communities statewide. While making a counterclockwise loop around Washington, the participants learn about Washington’s varied economies, diverse geography and the places where their students grew up. The tour typically stops in Tacoma, Olympia, Mt. St. Helens, Vancouver, Toppenish, Tri-Cities, Ritzville, Spokane, Grand Coulee and Leavenworth before returning to Seattle.

Held the week following Commencement, the tour is open to faculty from all three UW campuses. This year’s cohort included an oceanographer from the College of the Environment, a writing studies professor from UW Tacoma, an economist from the College of Arts & Sciences, and UW Bothell’s executive vice provost for academic affairs, among others.

“Our students come from all over the state, right? Certainly not just Seattle,” said , a UW assistant professor in the Information School who was on the tour. “If you want to be an effective educator, you need to understand where your students come from and what their communities are like.”

The 2027 Faculty Field Tour is scheduled for the week of June 14.

Over the past five years, the national conversation around health and nutrition has become ’ Most prominently, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s blames these foods for a host of chronic health issues and has to remove some UPFs from the food supply.��

But there’s a glaring problem: Nobody can agree on how, exactly, to define ultra-processed foods. The lack of a clear definition has stymied legislative and regulatory efforts to curb UPF consumption, and caused confusion for people evaluating their own diets.��

This spring, a panel of 14 nutrition, food science, policy and legal experts gathered to create a more practical and operational definition. The panel’s final report, , suggests an ingredient-based approach to identify ultra-processed foods, while also recommending a series of policies to reduce people’s exposure to them.��

The panel was co-chaired by , clinical professor emeritus of health systems and population health at the UW and executive director of the nonprofit group . UW News sat down with Krieger to discuss the new definition, the debate around ultra-processed foods and how people can limit their consumption.

How have we traditionally defined ultra-processed foods, and where does that definition fall short?��

Jim Krieger: The ultra-processed food concept was developed by who’s a physician and epidemiologist at the University of Sao Paolo in Brazil. He was trying to understand an increase in obesity and chronic disease rates, particularly in kids and young adults, and noticed some important changes in the diet that weren’t fully explained by just the usual nutrient profiling — like fat, sugar, salt. Monteiro came up with this concept of ultra-processed foods. The categorization system is called , which means ‘new’ in Portuguese, and classifies foods across a spectrum beginning with unprocessed ingredients and ending in ultra-processed. Ultra-processed foods are the ones that are the most highly processed industrial products, basically.��

The Nova definition is geared toward 91����, to really examine the effects of ultra-processed foods on a range of health outcomes. Using it, numerous studies have found ultra-processed foods to be associated with a whole host of health problems, like diabetes and heart disease and depression. That’s the basis to say, well, there’s probably sufficient evidence to figure out what we can do to reduce exposure to ultra-processed foods by reducing sales and consumption. That requires policy, and to have policy you need to have a definition of ultra-processed food that’s suitable for regulation or legislation, and that’s where the rub comes. The definition for 91���� doesn’t really work in a policy context, because the Nova 91���� definition uses multiple factors, including ingredients, processing techniques, and other factors to identify products as ultraprocessed. Applying Nova can require individual-level review of ambiguous products by skilled nutrition experts that may not be feasible in policy contexts.

You co-chaired a panel of 14 experts who came up with a new definition. What did that work look like, and what’s your new definition?

One criticism of the movement against UPFs has been that some foods that are technically ultra-processed are actually quite nutritious. I’m thinking of products like yogurts, whole-grain breads and tofu. How does your definition account for that?

JK: You want your definition to be sensitive enough to pick up most UPFs, but also specific — that is, not capture foods that are not truly UPFs or even those that can be part of a healthy diet. The way we addressed that was the FDA, a couple years ago, developed criteria for what they call a . If a company wants to say its products are healthy and put that on the package, it has to meet .��

We decided that even if a product is ultra-processed, if it meets the FDA’s criteria for a ‘Healthy’ food, then it should be exempted from policy. That cuts out edge cases — healthier foods that are also UPFs.

Your final report also dives into policy and makes recommendations for lawmakers to consider. What is the current status of ultra-processed food policy across the U.S.?��

JK: Over the last couple of years there has been a flurry of activity, particularly at the state legislative level. Some states say they’re getting rid of ultra-processed foods in school meals, for example, but they have a somewhat random list of ingredients or additives they don’t like.��

A few states have tried to take a more evidence-based approach. The best example of that is California, where they passed . They used the same kind of ingredient-list approach that we recommend, simplified a little bit. However, for a food to be a UPF under California’s definition, it must also be high in fat, sugar or salt, which raises a problem — about 35% of all ultra-processed foods do not have those levels. Proposed legislation in states like Pennsylvania have avoided this problem by sticking with the Nova-based definition, as recommended by our expert panel, rather than adding on fat, sugar and salt criteria.����

There’s also been a huge amount of movement in a couple of countries, especially in Latin America. Furthest along is , where the government just issued a regulation to require ultra-processed food labels on packages. They’re basically using the Nova definition as well.

There are policies moving now, which is why we felt it was important to say, use a good definition of ultra-processed for what you’re doing, and then think about certain policy ideas as the best bets for doing something about the problem. For us, those ideas include requiring labels on packages identifying a product as ultra-processed and removing UPFs from food served in schools, childcare and in government facilities.��

Many of the factors that lead people to choose ultra-processed foods are systemic. As an example, food deserts leave some people without easy access to affordable fresh foods. How did the panel consider those factors in making your policy recommendations?

JK: Increasing access to healthy foods gets into another set of policies that are well-described and, to varying extents, are being put into place. Our panel focused specifically on UPF policies. We did assess whether any of our policy recommendations would have unintended consequences of making food less available or affordable for people with low incomes and then we figured out strategies for mitigating those effects.��

A great example would be if you tax even a subset of ultra-processed foods, that’s going to make them less affordable, and that’s a challenge. We recommend that the tax revenues raised from these policies go toward vouchers or incentives for people with lower incomes that they can cash in for fruits and vegetables at a more affordable price.��

We also rejected some policy ideas. One was restricting the use of SNAP (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly known as food stamps) benefits for purchasing ultra-processed foods. We felt that would have too much of a negative impact on food affordability for people using SNAP, so we did not recommend that.��

What comes next for this 91����?��

JK: Our next step is to share this definition with as many policymakers as we can, and then offer them technical support if they want to figure out how to use this in legislation or regulation. The second thing is if any legislators, policymakers or advocates want to pursue policies, we’re available to provide technical support and assistance.��

There’s also a bunch of additional 91���� that would be useful. We have some of those recommendations at the end of the report, but as an example, there’s controversy right now over different subgroups of UPFs and whether some are more harmful than others. The 91���� that’s been done so far has been somewhat confusing and flawed. There’s also 91���� on how, exactly, ultra-processed foods cause all these problems. There are a lot of great, interesting hypotheses, but I wouldn’t say any of them are definitive.��

As an expert in this field, how do you approach ultra-processed foods in your own life, and how would you recommend people think about reducing their own consumption?��

JK: Right now, about 60% of the calories that Americans consume are ultra-processed foods. Starting there, small and incremental steps are great. You can’t totally change your diet overnight, so the bottom-line message is to think about small things you can do.��

The first challenge is identifying UPFs, which is where we started this conversation. If there are ingredients in food that you don’t have in your kitchen, it’s likely going to be a UPF, and if it’s a long ingredient list that looks like a chemistry lab, it’s probably a UPF. Then you can consider what the food looks like. If it’s super bright, like Froot Loops or Doritos, that probably means it’s a UPF.��

But then once you’ve identified ultra-processed foods, what do you do? Let’s think about one thing you want to do. Say you drink a lot of sweetened beverages. You can think of what you can swap in that works for you, like sparkling water that doesn’t have a lot of additives, or coffee or tea.

As for me, I don’t eat many ultra-processed foods. When I started doing this work, when my kids were younger, I fed them all sorts of UPFs. I certainly wouldn’t do that now and wish I had known better. But if I want to have something that’s ultra-processed, that’s fine, it’s not going to kill you to have just a little bit. As long as your , then that’s great.��

The panel was co-chaired by Krieger and Lindsey Smith Taillie of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and convened by Mary Story and Megan Elsener Lott of Duke University. A full list of panel members is included in the panel’s This work was funded by Healthy Eating Research and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.��

For more information or to contact Krieger, email Alden Woods at acwoods@uw.edu.��

The 91���� recently was ranked highly among its global peers in both the and the . Both rankings were released in mid-June.

According to U.S. News, the UW is No. 12 in the world on the 2026-27 rankings, No. 3 among U.S. public institutions. The UW also placed in the top 10 globally in six subject areas.

On the QS World University Rankings, the UW is among the top 100, landing at No. 92, or No. 7 among U.S. public universities.

More about the U.S. News & World Report Best Global Universities ranking:

The U.S. News ranking methodology — based on data and metrics provided by Clarivate — weighs factors that measure a university’s global and regional 91���� reputation and academic 91���� performance. For the overall rankings, this includes bibliometric indicators such as the number of publications, citations and international collaboration.

The overall Best Global Universities ranking encompasses 2,250 institutions spread across 105 countries.

Here are the UW fields of study that are in the top 10 in U.S. News’ subject rankings:

• Public, environmental and occupational health — No. 4
• Molecular biology and genetics — No. 6
• Microbiology — No. 7
• Biology and biochemistry — No. 7
• Infectious diseases — No. 7
• Clinical medicine — No. 8

More about the QS World University Rankings:��

This is the 23rd edition of the global higher education ranking by the analyst firm QS Quacquarelli Symonds. The UW placed No. 92 in the world and No. 23 in America. The UW is in the top 10 among U.S. public universities, landing at No. 7. This year’s ranking features more than 1,500 universities across 106 higher education systems, including 184 in the U.S.

The QS World University Rankings are based on a weighted index of indicators including 91���� and discovery, employability and outcomes, global engagement, learning experience and sustainability.

Why is it important to study mosquitoes?��

Willem Laursen: Mosquitoes have been an enduring scourge of humanity for millennia. Their bites are a nuisance to humans and animals alike, and ancient texts describe illnesses consistent with mosquito-borne diseases, such as malaria, long before the source of transmission was understood.

Globalization and climate change are expanding the geographic range of many mosquito species, and their increasing resistance to insecticides threatens the long-term effectiveness of current control strategies. As a result, we urgently need new approaches for controlling mosquito-borne disease.

If we can better understand the genetic and sensory basis of mosquito behavior, we might be able to find new opportunities to disrupt disease transmission. Critical behaviors such as host seeking and blood feeding are highly specialized and difficult to model in other organisms, making it essential to study these mechanisms directly in mosquitoes themselves.

Andrea Durant: These mosquito-related problems are not just for humans. Warmer winters and early-season snowmelt have led to massive swarms of mosquitoes coinciding with wildlife migration, which changes foraging patterns in the Arctic tundra and forces animals like caribou to use precious energy reserves on evading these mosquito-blackened skies. Mosquito swarms are also a big problem for agriculture, particularly cattle herds.

What do you study?

AD: My lab studies how mosquitoes maintain a stable internal environment when faced with changing external conditions. Mosquitoes start their life as an egg that is deposited in or near water, and the larval, or juvenile, stages are aquatic. Unlike the terrestrial flying adult mosquito that has agency in its choice of residence, a mosquito larva is tied to wherever it hatches — it must survive and develop there, or die.

Sometimes the aquatic reservoirs where an adult female has selected to lay her eggs can be quite extreme, such as very polluted freshwater and seawater. We study specialized adaptations that allow these larvae to survive — most mosquito species require clean freshwater for larval development. Our goal is to reveal how mosquitoes have been able to successfully expand their habitats to places like urban sewage systems and salty coastal habitats.

WL: In my lab, our 91���� focuses on understanding how mosquitoes sense things at the cellular level. We are trying to determine what proteins mosquitoes use to detect human-associated cues, such as heat and humidity. By identifying the cellular and molecular machinery mosquitoes use to find hosts, food sources, mates and egg-laying sites, we hope to better understand how specialized behaviors, such as blood feeding, evolve, and to uncover new targets for controlling the transmission of mosquito-borne diseases.

Jeffrey Riffell: My lab studies the “how” of mosquito biting behavior. We also study how they visit flowers and plants — yes, they can pollinate certain plants! — to understand their natural behaviors. By learning more about mosquito physiology and behavior, we would like to develop new tools for traps and ways to control mosquitoes around people’s homes.

Tell us what it’s like to be someone who studies mosquitoes.

JR: Mosquitoes, all day and all the time. Although we try to minimize the potential for mosquito biting in the lab and in our field sites, you have to grin and bear it when dealing with these little vampires.��

WL: Being around large swarms of mosquitoes all day does desensitize me a bit. Sometimes I will be out hiking or camping with family members and I won’t be paying much attention until I start hearing complaints about the mosquitoes. Working with mosquitoes also leads me to do funny things, such as collecting sweat or wearing a nylon stocking for days to collect human odors for behavioral assays.

Rearing transgenic mosquitoes in the lab is a bit like ranching: We have to keep track of large herds of animals. Because the life stages live in different environments, we have to constantly shuttle them around between water-filled trays, for the larvae/pupae, and cages, for the terrestrial adults. We also have to move the adults around on a specific schedule to make sure they have access to our artificial blood feeders. Some lab members jokingly put a sign on the door that says “Welcome to The Ranch.”

AD: Willem is to a rancher as I am to a protagonist in “Swamp People.” We often venture outside of the lab to hunt mosquitoes in their natural habitat in urban and peri-urban areas. Sometimes we find ourselves in picturesque places like the beautiful pillow basalt coastlines of the San Juan Islands. Most often, I can be found headfirst in a nutrient-rich septic system in someone’s backyard filled with mosquito larvae or marching into the fray of massive swarms of saline-tolerant mosquitoes that await in tidal marshlands and mangrove forests.

What is the coolest mosquito fact you know?

WL: There are over 3,500 species of mosquitoes, with vastly different appearances, life histories and host preferences. Many are generalists. A few strongly prefer humans and some feed from cold-blooded animals like frogs or earthworms. The large amber-encased Toxorhynchites elephant mosquito shown in the movie “Jurassic Park” feeds on other mosquito larvae and doesn’t actually drink blood at all.

JR: I like These mosquitoes are very pretty, and they shoot their eggs into tree holes.

What’s one thing you wish people understood about mosquitoes?

AD: The incalculable misery that mosquitoes exert on humans and other animals certainly overshadows any appreciation for the importance of mosquitoes in nature. Many species of mosquitoes are critical to biodiversity and are actually fundamental to the food chain. There are numerous examples of areas with reduced breeding success and animal survival because there have been effective vector control programs and non-targeted mosquito eradication efforts.

For more information, contact Laursen at wlaursen@uw.edu, Durant at durantan@uw.edu and Riffell at jriffell@uw.edu.

Every summer, , 91���� associate professor of biology, and members of her lab head to northern Botswana to study how large predators, such as lions and African wild dogs, are affected by climate change and other shifts in their environment.

The 91����ers are particularly interested in understanding how these predators are changing their behavior — including where they go and when they reproduce — as the days get hotter and as the animals are more likely to come into contact with people. One example is a project studying how interactions between lions and wild dogs, which don’t typically get along, might change during heatwaves and droughts.

Abrahms is returning to Botswana again this summer, along with two other 91����ers in her lab: , a UW 91���� scientist in biology, and , a UW doctoral student in biology. , UW professor of environmental and forest sciences, will also be joining for parts of the season. UW News asked Rafiq and Poulin a few questions about their upcoming work for the occasional series “In the Field,” which highlights UW field efforts.

Tell us about the trip. Where are you going?

Kasim Rafiq: Our team will be traveling to the fringes of the . We have a long-standing partnership with , which has been operating a long-term monitoring program there since the 1990s. As part of this program, Wild Entrust operates a remote bush camp that we work out of, which we affectionately call “Wild Dog Camp,” or “Dog Camp” for short. This is really just a collection of tents in the middle of the African bush, and everything is non-permanent, meaning it could be quickly taken apart.

The camp is located in an area managed by the local community for wildlife tourism, and it borders the . So, it’s a wild landscape with lots of wildlife and lush vegetation. There’s no fence around the camp, so it’s not uncommon for animals to wander through the camp day and night, including lions, elephants, leopards and various species of snakes.

Have you visited this site before?

KR: I first came to Dog Camp in 2013 as a 91���� assistant and then I completed my master’s and doctoral 91���� there studying leopards. For my doctoral project, I stayed at the camp for two years because leopards are pretty tricky to study. I’ve been back to Dog Camp every year since I joined the Abrahms Lab as a 91���� scientist in 2021.

I feel very privileged to have been able to work with the people in camp for such a long period of time. It’s been special to see how the camp has developed over that period, and also to maintain relationships with the Botswana-based teams.

MP: I joined the Abrahms Lab in 2024 and spent time in the field that year to become familiar with the carnivores that we study. I returned in 2025 and I began to learn essential field skills, such as how to track and follow carnivores in the bush. I’m excited for my third visit to the field site this year.

How do you study these creatures?

KR: We use a combination of techniques. We directly watch these predators and use new conservation technologies to monitor animals year-round and during periods when it’s just not possible to follow them, such as when it’s too wet.

One key technology we use is wildlife tracking collars that use GPS sensors to let us see where the animals are going and accelerometers and microphones to let us know what they’re doing. We like to think of these collars as Fitbits for wildlife. Just like your fitness tracker helps you better understand your movement and your sleep, these collars allow us to get deep insights into an animal’s behavior.

Can you talk about some of the projects you’re working on?

MP: I’m looking at how social structure in wild dogs may influence how they respond to environmental change. Wild dogs live in tight-knit packs, just like grey wolves in North America. In each pack, usually only one lead pair has pups, while the rest of the pack — often aunts, uncles and older siblings — all work together to babysit, feed and protect the pups.

In my 91����, I am investigating how a pack’s “social profile,” such as its size, family ties and history, affects how the animals adjust their movement patterns during heatwaves and droughts. I’m also looking at how increasing temperatures affect the timing of these dogs’ reproduction.

Overall, I’m interested in understanding if the benefits of living in a group, such as the higher hunting success, pup care, and reproductive success seen in larger packs, might help buffer the impacts of environmental change on animal populations.

What are your goals for this trip?

KR: This year, our plan is to deploy tracking collars on the long-term lion and African wild dog study populations across our field site. The data that we’ll get from these collars is crucial for helping us understand how behaviors change year after year as a result of environmental change.

A key part of this field season will also involve following animals with these sensors and collecting video recordings of them doing different behaviors, such as where and how they hunt and feed. We will use the video data to train AI models that allow us to better understand how climate change is affecting these behaviors.

What’s something you really enjoy about doing this field work — especially something that might not occur to most people?

KR: Two of the things I enjoy most are the behind-the-scenes parts of the work that are critical to this type of fieldwork, but that people rarely think about or see.

First, I really enjoy tracking animals. There’s something quite meditative about following a wild animal’s footprints through the grass.

The second is vehicle mechanics. Around 80% of fieldwork is fixing your Land Rover when it breaks down for some unknown reason, and although that tinkering can be frustrating, it’s also fun. Some of my favorite memories in the bush come from sitting in the sand and taking apart the engine.

MP: I love tracking animals using radio telemetry. The tracking collars we put on animals send out radio signals that we can detect with an antenna and receiver. By listening for the “ping,” we can tell which direction the animal is in and roughly how far away it is. The carnivores we study roam across huge areas, so tracking them often means a lot of driving on rough roads and not always having successful searches. But, hearing that first — often really faint — “ping” is always super exciting, and finding the animals feels rewarding.

I also especially love being in the field around sunrise and sunset, when the landscape looks golden, feels peaceful and the animals are most active.

More generally, is there anything you find surprising about doing field work?

KR: Although fieldwork is intensive and often the busiest part of the year, it’s busy in a very different way from office work. I’m often surprised that, despite the long hours, I feel more energized in the field than I do at my desk. I think part of that comes from being so close to the animals and the landscape you’re trying to understand.

I’m also a big believer that, although technologies like GPS collars and audio recorders now allow us to collect huge amounts of data from the comfort of our offices, those data are only as useful as our ability to interpret them. To do that well, you really need to understand your study animal. There are many ways to build that understanding, from reading books to watching documentaries, but for me, nothing compares to spending time in the field. I always come back with a dozen new ideas that have appeared while simply sitting and watching the animals.

MP: Doing field work is really enlightening. It’s extremely valuable because it gives us a better understanding of the animals and their environment. By observing where animals spend their time, how they interact with one another and with other species, and the challenges they face, we can develop more meaningful 91���� questions. Spending time in the field also sparks creativity, because it allows us to see and notice unexpected behaviors and inspires new ideas for 91����.

For more information, contact Rafiq at rafiqk@uw.edu and Poulin at mpoulin1@uw.edu.

The ShakeAlert earthquake early warning system has been rapidly expanding since its launch in 2021. Now, 91����ers at 91���� affiliated Pacific Northwest Seismic Network (PNSN) have finished all planned installations, bringing the two-state total to spread across Washington and Oregon.

ShakeAlert detects ground motion from earthquakes before it is felt, giving people precious time to drop, cover and hold on. An earthquake exceeding magnitude 5 will trigger an automated cell phone alert from the , or WEA, which also sends AMBER alerts. Millions of people benefit from the network as is, but the 91����ers are still exploring ways to improve it.

“When we launched ShakeAlert, we felt confident that we had enough seismic stations to do a good job with early warning, but that wasn’t the optimal number. Now, with the buildout complete, we have coverage where it was lacking at launch,” said , director of PNSN and a UW professor in Earth and space sciences.

However, expanding the network to include sensors on the ocean floor could help Pacific Northwest residents contend with the area’s greatest hazard — the Cascadia Subduction Zone.

The West Coast is a hotbed for seismic activity. Nestled in the , an array of volcanoes circling the Pacific Ocean where 90% of Earth’s quakes occur, the region’s volatile geology clashes with its growing population. Early warning systems can give people seconds to minutes of time to prepare for shaking, and a sense of how strong it will be.

Just over a year ago, a midsized earthquake under Orcas Island offered ShakeAlert in Washington. Multiple seismometers in the area picked up the signal and ran it back to headquarters for verification. The earthquake wasn’t quite big enough to trigger a WEA automated alert, or cause major damage, but in the affected region it did notify people��with early warning apps such as MyShake, as well as all Android mobile devices.

“The system detected the earthquake rapidly, accurately assessed its magnitude and automatically sent out a warning — all in a handful of seconds,” said Tobin. “It was the first event that met all the criteria in Washington and it worked really well.”

During a larger earthquake, warnings will be automatic no matter the app or operating system. Warnings will also trigger certain public safety measures: Schools can connect PA systems to ShakeAlert for rapid updates, public transit may slow trains to avoid derailment and fire station doors will go up to allow firetrucks out even if electricity is lost.

Right now, the system is most effective for land-based earthquakes because the sensors are on land. Expanding the sensor network to include offshore, ocean bottom seismometers could improve detection and warning time for offshore earthquakes, namely a much-anticipated megathrust earthquake at the Cascadia Subduction Zone.

“The fundamental problem we have is that our seismic network — hundreds and hundreds of stations — is on land, but the biggest earthquake hazard comes from off our coast,” Tobin said. “Earthquake detection works much better when the earthquake is in the area of your network, not off to one side.”

Seismometers can be placed on the ocean floor, but they must be connected to cables for early warning, which is expensive. Japan installed an impressive that cost $120 million following the devastating 2011 earthquake. The country now has more than 200 seismometers covering its subduction zones.

The Cascadia Subduction Zone has a handful of existing offshore sensors — five near Vancouver Island and two off the coast of Oregon. A UW-led project this summer to the Oregon cable, which spans hundreds of seafloor miles, crossing the subduction zone twice. None of the offshore sensors are in the ShakeAlert network, but adding them could be impactful.

, a UW postdoctoral 91����er in Earth and space science, recently at the Seismological Society of America’s annual meeting detailing the potential benefits of adding offshore seismic monitoring.

Krauss found with modeling that incorporating just a few ocean bottom sensors improved detection time for offshore earthquakes and warning time for millions of people. In hypothetical earthquake scenarios, the sensors picked up ground motion faster and improved magnitude estimates because they were closer to the fault.

“ShakeAlert is all about figuring out that an earthquake is happening as fast as possible, so having sensors nearby is essential,” Krauss said. “But in these magnitude 8 or 9 scenarios, it’s not just about detecting it, but realizing how big it is, and fast.”

The 91����ers also explored incorporating telecommunications cables into the sensor network using a method called distributed acoustic sensing (DAS), which records ground motion based on cable stretch. Incorporating DAS could extend the reach of existing cables even further than sensors, translating to “huge warning time improvements,” Krauss said.

Different combinations produced varying improvements in both detection and warning time, depending on where the hypothetical earthquake occurred. Regardless, having sensors always beat not having them. While there are several hurdles to clear before ocean bottom sensors can be brought into ShakeAlert, Krauss said none are insurmountable.

“Although we’ve marked this milestone of completing our station buildout, that doesn’t mean we’re not continuously improving the ShakeAlert system,” Tobin said. “We’re working to make it faster, better and more reliable.”

For more information, contact Tobin at htobin@uw.edu and Krauss at zkrauss@uw.edu.����