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The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) seeks to support up to 10 Imaging Scientists who will work at the interface of biology, microscopy hardware, and imaging software at imaging centers across the United States. "Imaging Scientists" might be engineers, physicists, mathematicians, computer scientists, or biologists who have focused on technology development in either microscopy or data analysis fields. The primary goal of the program is to increase interactions between biologists and technology experts. The Imaging Scientists will have expertise in microscopy hardware and/or imaging software. A successful "Imaging Program" will employ an Imaging Scientist who: a) works collaboratively with experimental biologists on projects at the imaging center; b) participates in courses that disseminate advanced microscopy methods and analysis; c) trains students and postdocs in imaging technology; d) participates in a network of CZI Imaging Scientists to identify needs and drive advances in the imaging field; e) attends twice-yearly CZI scientific workshops and meetings in imaging and adjacent biomedical areas. Each grant will fund salary and fringe benefits for an Imaging Scientist at the center, a modest travel and teaching budget, plus 15% indirect costs. The award period is three years plus an additional two years if the Imaging Program passes a review at year three.

On the occasion of its 350th anniversary, Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany will fund innovative projects in applied biophysical & analytical research. Projects will be based on the following challenges: · Challenge 1: Analytical technologies for antibodies and antibody-drug conjugates, as well as technologies to determine drug target engagement, or the level of protein or nucleic acid or metabolic biomarkers. · Challenge 2: Analytical technologies for display materials or semiconductors (Liquid Crystals, OLED Materials, Quantum Materials, Reactive Mesogens, Photoresist Materials). E.g. Spectroscopic Methods, MS Hyphenation, Capillary Chromatography and Comprehensive Separation Technologies; Surface analytics for displays (non- or destructive), Sample preparation techniques for ultra-sensitive investigations · Challenge 3: Analytical technologies for the characterization of polymers, chemical imaging, bioanalytical methods or new methods in molecular biology. Technologies of interest for example are: field flow floractionation (FFF), dynamic light scattering (DLS), chemical imaging, new chromatographic techniques, spectroscopic and spectrometric methods, electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR), microwave analytics

In celebrating its 350th anniversary, Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany offers a series of research grants to stimulate innovative research in challenging areas of future importance. Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany intends to provide several research grants of up to EUR 350,000 per year for 3 years in various research areas with the option of extension or expansion. Grants are offered for research in the following areas: Healthy Lives / Drug Discovery: Challenge 1: What is the next game-changing molecule or technology to help cure cancer or autoimmune disease? Life Reimagined / Synthetic Biology: Challenge 1: What is the next generation production technology for biologics? Challenge 2: Can you revolutionize microbiome research? Materials & Solutions: Challenge 1: Can you develop a new generation of intelligent materials? Challenge 2: Can you develop advances in characterization, control and surface chemistry? Challenge 3: Can you develop better atomic layer processes - from modelling to materials? Digitalization / Computing: Challenge 1: How can in-silico research benefit from deep learning or quantum computing?

The Human Cell Atlas (HCA) is a global effort to create a reference map of all cell types in the human body. The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and the Helmsley Charitable Trust are pleased to announce continued support for the Human Cell Atlas by collaborating on two new funding mechanisms that the community can access through a single application portal. The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative seeks to continue the work of the HCA community with a focus on interdisciplinary work and collaboration through the formation of 3 year Seed Networks. The Helmsley Charitable Trust welcomes applications that will construct a detailed atlas of the human gut. Project Specifications This Request for Applications (RFA) seeks to support the continued growth of nascent projects and to incubate new networks. The Seed Networks should generate new tools, open source analysis methods, and significant contributions of diverse data types to the Human Cell Atlas Data Coordination Platform. Applications should have a primary focus on the healthy tissues that will contribute to a reference atlas. Seed Networks Seed Networks should consist of at least three principal investigators, including at least one computational biologist or software engineer, together with additional computational biologists, engineers, experimental biologists, and/or physicians. CZI Seed Networks aim to support foundational tools and resources for the HCA and will not require a gut component in the application. CZI Seed Network Grants have four overarching scientific goals: - Build and support networks of collaborating scientists and engineers; - Contribution of high-quality data to v1.0 of the HCA; - Development of new technologies and benchmark data sets, particularly those anchored in spatial as well as molecular information; - Support of computational biology within the Human Cell Atlas community.

The IMEE program supports fundamental, multidisciplinary research on the impact of hazards and disasters upon civil infrastructure and society. The program is focused upon research on the mitigation of, preparedness for, response to, and recovery from multi-hazard disasters. Community and societal resilience and sustainability are important topics within the research portfolio of IMEE. The program is deeply multidisciplinary, integrating multiple perspectives, methods and results from diverse areas in engineering, social and natural sciences, and computing. Among these are civil, mechanical, transportation and system engineering; sociology, cognitive science and psychology, economics, geography, political science and urban planning; geology, biology and meteorology; and applied computing. Methodological innovations that span multiple, diverse disciplines are strongly encouraged.

The mission of BTO is to foster, demonstrate, and transition breakthrough fundamental research, discoveries, and applications that integrate biology, engineering, computer science, mathematics, and the physical sciences. BTO's investment portfolio goes far beyond life sciences applications in medicine to include areas of research such as human-machine interfaces, microbes as production platforms, and deep exploration of the impact of evolving ecologies and environments on U.S. readiness and capabilities. BTO's programs operate across a wide range of scales, from individual cells to the warfighter to global ecosystems. BTO responds to the urgent and long-term needs of the Department of Defense (DoD) and addresses national security priorities.

The purpose of this Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) is to stimulate translation of scientific discoveries and engineering developments in imaging, data science and/or spectroscopic technologies into methods or tools that address contemporary problems in understanding the fundamental biology, potential risk of development, diagnosis, treatment, and/or disease status for cancer or other disease.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) Directorates for Engineering (ENG) and Geosciences (GEO), the Divisions of Integrative Organismal Systems (IOS) and Environmental Biology (DEB), in the Directorate for Biological Sciences (BIO), the Division of Computer and Network Systems in the Directorate Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE/CNS), and the Division of Chemistry (CHE) in the Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences, in collaboration with the US Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture (USDA NIFA) encourage convergent research that transforms existing capabilities in understanding dynamic soil processes, including soil formation, through advances in sensor systems and modeling. The Signals in the Soil (SitS) program fosters collaboration among the two partner agencies and the researchers they support by combining resources and funding for the most innovative and high-impact projects that address their respective missions. To make transformative advances in our understanding of soils, multiple disciplines must converge to produce environmentally-benign novel sensing systems with multiple modalities that can adapt to different environments and collect and transmit data for a wide range of biological, chemical, and physical parameters. Effective integration of sensor data will be key for achieving a better understanding of signaling interactions among plants, animals, microbes, the soil matrix, and aqueous and gaseous components. New sensor networks have the potential to inform models in novel ways, to radically change how data is obtained from various natural and managed (both urban and rural) ecosystems, and to better inform the communities that directly rely on soils for sustenance and livelihood.

The purpose of this funding opportunity announcement (FOA) is twofold: 1. to accelerate translational and clinical Phase I and II a/b safety and efficacy studies for substantiating measurable functional benefits of probiotic/prebiotic components and/or their combinations; and; 2. to understand the underlying mechanisms of their action(s), and variability in responses to these interventions. This FOA calls for interdisciplinary collaborations across scientific disciplines engaged in microbiome and pro/prebiotic research including, but not limited to: nutritional science, microbiology, virology, microecology and microbiome, genomics, immunology, computational biology, chemistry, bioengineering, as well as integration of omics and computational approaches in DNA technologies.

The purpose of this Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) is to stimulate translation of scientific discoveries and engineering developments in imaging or spectroscopic technologies into methods or tools that address problems in cancer biology, risk of cancer development, diagnosis, treatment, and/or disease status. A distinguishing feature of each application will be formation of an academic-industrial partnership, which is a strategic alliance of investigators in academic, industrial, and any other entities who work together as partners to identify and translate a technological solution or mitigation of a cancer-related problem. The goals for proposed technologies are imaging applications in clinical trials, clinical research, non-clinical research, and/or patient care. Among other possibilities, they may include pre-clinical imaging investigations or investigations that combine patient specimens and pre-clinical methods, or optimizations of methods across different commercial platforms, sites, or time.

This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) solicits grant applications proposing exploratory research projects focused on the early-stage development of highly innovative technologies that improve the quality of the samples used for cancer research or clinical care. This includes new capabilities to address issues related to pre-analytical degradation of targeted analytes during the collection, processing, handling, and/or storage of cancer-relevant biospecimens. The overall goal is to support the development of highly innovative technologies capable of maximizing or otherwise interrogating the quality and utility of biological samples used for downstream analyses. This FOA will support the development of tools, devices, instrumentation, and associated methods to preserve or protect sample integrity, or establish verification criteria for quality assessment/quality control and handling under diverse conditions. These technologies are expected to accelerate and/or enhance research in cancer biology, early detection and screening, clinical diagnosis, treatment, epidemiology, or address issues associated with cancer health disparities, by reducing pre-analytical variations that affect biospecimen sample quality.

Pandemics have far reaching consequences that range from deaths to shutting down the economy as we have witnessed during the recent COVID19 crisis. Hence there is a need to be better prepared for such pandemics. We need to solve problems ranging from predictive analytics innovative devices for saving lives to technology for devising voting machines. The social and economic impact for the above areas is huge and some of the work can be transformative and save lives. Areas of interest to us include, but are not limited to: - Mathematical models for spread and the impact of pandemics. - Scalable simulation techniques for pandemics (e.g. with multi agents). - Biomedical/Nano sensor devices for detecting symptoms and agents. - Algorithms for rapid exploration of the drug screening and discovery workflows (e.g. use reinforcement learning) - Advanced computational biology techniques for sequencing, detecting viral evolution (e.g. in COVID-19). - Algorithms and systems for contact tracing (with privacy preserving). - Algorithms and recommendation systems for curating media and news. - Collaboration techniques for more effective health, and efficiency during pandemics. Improved identity and security techniques. - Distributed Ledgers, their applications and their governance for and during pandemics. - Pandemic data science - understanding the patterns and the impact of a pandemic like COVID-10. Creation of curated data sets. We are interested in both the science and technology aspects of these problem sets, and, particularly, in the intersections between them.

NASA and the Sloan Foundation have agreed through a Space Act Agreement to work in parallel for a common purpose: to sponsor studies designed to provide insight into the microbiome of the built environment of the ISS that will advance our knowledge and understanding of human-built habitats on Earth, to enhance ISS utilization, and to inform the development of future space exploration vehicles that are occupied by humans. NASA is soliciting, through this Appendix, research applications for Postdoctoral Fellowships from early career scientists to design experiments that utilize a NASA collection of ISS microbial isolates collected over a decade or more to help understand better how microbial communities colonize, adapt, and evolve on the ISS. All proposals must propose experiments that utilize these microbial isolates collected from the ISS that have been archived at the Johnson Space Center.

Despite significant increases in the proportion of women pursuing science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) doctoral degrees, women are significantly underrepresented as faculty, particularly in upper ranks, and in academic administrative positions, in almost all STEM fields.  The problems of recruitment, retention, and advancement that are the causes of this underrepresentation vary by discipline and across groups of women faculty (e.g., by race/ethnicity, disability status, sexual orientation, foreign-born and foreign-trained status, and faculty appointment type).  The ADVANCE program is designed to foster gender equity through a focus on the identification and elimination of organizational barriers that impede the full participation and advancement of all women faculty in academic institutions.  Organizational barriers that inhibit equity may exist in areas such as policy, practice, culture, and organizational climate.

Quantum Information Science (QIS) supports theoretical and experimental proposals that explore quantum applications to new computing paradigms or that foster interactions between physicists, mathematicians, and computer scientists that push the frontiers of quantum-based information, transmission, and manipulation. The quantum information science program is focused on investigations relevant to disciplines supported by the Physics Division, while encouraging broader impacts on other disciplines. 

In 2016, the National Science Foundation (NSF) unveiled a set of "Big Ideas," 10 bold, long-term research and process ideas that identify areas for future investment at the frontiers of science and engineering (seehttps://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/big_ideas/index.jsp). The Big Ideas represent unique opportunities to position our Nation at the cutting edge of global science and engineering leadership by bringing together diverse disciplinary perspectives to support convergence research. As such, when responding to this solicitation, even though proposals must be submitted tothe Division of Emerging Frontiers in the Directorate for Biological Sciences (BIO/EF),once received, the proposals will be managed by a cross-disciplinary team of NSF Program Directors. The purpose of the Understanding the Rules of Life: Epigenetics (URoL:Epigenetics) program is to enable innovative research and to promote multidisciplinary education and workforce training in the broad area of epigenetics. The URoL:Epigenetics program is a widecollaborationacross Directorates/Offices within the National Science Foundation with a focus on understanding the relationship between epigenetic mechanisms associated with environmental change, the resultant phenotypes of organisms, and how these mechanisms lead to robustness and adaptability of organisms and populations. Understanding the Rules of Life (URoL): PredictingPhenotypeis one of NSF's 10 Big Ideasand is focused on predicting the set of observable characteristics (phenotype) from the genetic makeup of the individual and the nature of its environment.

NIST is soliciting applications from eligible institutions of higher education in the U.S. and its territories that offer two- or four- year degrees in academic science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines, which include but are not limited to biochemistry, biological sciences, chemistry, computer science, engineering, electronics, materials science, mathematics, nanoscale science, neutron science, physical sciences, physics, and statistics, to establish and manage a program to support collaborative research relationships among NIST staff, undergraduate and graduate students, individuals with bachelor's or master's degrees, post-doctoral fellows, and academic affiliates, and the PREP researchers' academic institutions. These collaborative relationships will include research opportunities at the relevant NIST campuses in Boulder, Colorado (CO) (PREP Boulder), or Gaithersburg, Maryland (MD), and/or Charleston, South Carolina (SC) (PREP Gaithersburg). Eligible applicants may apply to establish and manage a PREP Boulder program or a PREP Gaithersburg program or may apply to establish and manage programs for both.

The purpose of this Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative is to encourage applications that will develop and validate tools and resources to facilitate the detailed analysis of brain microconnectivity. Novel and augmented techniques are sought that will ultimately be broadly accessible to the neuroscience community for the interrogation of microconnectivity in healthy and diseased brains of model organisms and humans. Development of technologies that will significantly drive down the cost of connectomics would enable routine mapping of the microconnectivity on the same individuals that have been analyzed physiologically, or to compare normal and pathological tissues in substantial numbers of multiple individuals to assess variability. Advancements in both electron microscopy (EM) and super resolution light microscopic approaches are sought. Applications that propose to develop approaches that break through existing technical barriers to substantially improve current capabilities are highly encouraged. Proof-of-principle demonstrations and/or reference datasets enabling future development are welcome, as are improved approaches for automated segmentation and analysis strategies of neuronal structures in EM images.

The goal of the RCN program is to advance a field or create new directions in research or education by supporting groups of investigators to communicate and coordinate their research, training and educational activities across disciplinary, organizational, geographic and international boundaries. The RCN program provides opportunities to foster new collaborations, including international partnerships, and address interdisciplinary topics. Innovative ideas for implementing novel networking strategies, collaborative technologies, training, broadening participation, and development of community standards for data and meta-data are especially encouraged. RCN awards are not meant to support existing networks; nor are they meant to support the activities of established collaborations RCN awards also do not support primary research. Rather, the RCN program supports the means by which investigators can share information and ideas, coordinate ongoing or planned research activities, foster synthesis and new collaborations, develop community standards, and in other ways advance science and education through communication and sharing of ideas.

The specific areas of interest are: 1. HED Hydrodynamics 2. Radiation-Dominated Dynamics and Material Properties 3. Magnetized HED Plasma Physics 4. Nonlinear Optics of Plasmas and Laser-Plasma Interactions 5. Relativistic HED Plasmas and Intense Beam Physics 6. Warm Dense Matter 7. High-Z, Multiply Ionized HED Atomic Physics 8. Diagnostics for HED Laboratory Plasmas Proposed research efforts can include experimental, theoretical, and/or computational science. Applications integrating experiments, theory, and simulation are encouraged. Grant applications are sought in the following subfields and crosscutting areas of HED laboratory plasmas, as described in the Report of the 2009 Workshop on Basic Research Needs for High-Energy-Density Laboratory Physics.