Dr. Utpal Pal Appointed as a 2025 MPower Professor

The University of Maryland Strategic Partnership: MPowering the State (MPower) announces its 2025 cohort of MPower Professors, featuring Utpal Pal from AGNR’s Department of Veterinary Medicine. This professorship recognizes, incentivizes and fosters collaborations between faculty who are working together on the most pressing issues of our time. Pal will receive $150,000 over three years to continue his novel research on the unique molecular-level interactions between ticks and their hosts, in an effort to develop potential vaccines and therapeutics for Lyme disease and other tick-borne diseases.

To be considered for the MPower Professorship, faculty must demonstrate collaboration on strategic research that would be unattainable or difficult to achieve by University of Maryland, Baltimore or University of Maryland, College Park acting independently of one another and must embrace the mission of MPower — to collectively strengthen and serve the state of Maryland and its citizens. 

Lyme disease is the most commonly reported tick-borne disease in the state as well as in the United States with high incidence in a range of geographic locations. Pal’s work is not only relevant to the statewide community, but applies to all of humanity as he inches closer to innovative anti-tick vaccines that can block tick engorgement and pathogen transmission.

Pal has millions in funding support from several high-profile granting agencies including the Department of Defense (DoD) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). He is the lead on recurring multi-million dollar, multi-institutional projects funded by NIH to unravel the complex biology of the deer tick and Lyme disease pathogens. With nearly 125 publications in reputed academic journals and books, he also fostered a long-term collaboration with Merck & Co. to develop novel anti-tick vaccines.

“I’m very honored to be selected as a 2025 MPower Professor,” said Pal. “Lyme disease and other tick-borne infections are a major global problem which require urgent action. I’m grateful to MPower for their commitment to this important cross-institutional research.”

“I’m deeply inspired by this incredible group of MPower Professors, who are not only dedicating themselves to solving some of the most complex problems facing society, but also embracing the power of cross-disciplinary and cross-institutional collaboration. By working together, we unlock new creative potential and develop innovative solutions that we couldn’t achieve alone,” said UMCP President Darryll J. Pines, PhD, MS. “Together, we are stronger." 

About the University of Maryland Strategic Partnership: MPowering the State 

The University of Maryland Strategic Partnership: MPowering the State is a collaboration between the state of Maryland’s two most powerful public research institutions: the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) and the University of Maryland, College Park (UMCP). It leverages the sizable strengths and complementary missions of both institutions to strengthen Maryland’s innovation economy, advance interdisciplinary research, create opportunities for students, and solve important problems for the people of Maryland and the nation. Working together, UMB and UMCP achieve innovation and impact through collaboration. 
The University of Maryland Strategic Partnership Act of 2016 strengthened and formalized the structured relationship between UMB and UMCP, which began in 2012. The law deepens the alliance and enables UMB and UMCP to pursue even greater transformative change and impact, far surpassing what each institution could do independent of the other.