OARS funding Nanoscience

Partnerships for International Research and Education (PIRE) is an NSF-wide program that supports international activities across all NSF supported disciplines. The primary goal of PIRE is to support high quality projects in which advances in research and education could not occur without international collaboration. PIRE seeks to catalyze a higher level of international engagement in the U.S. science and engineering community. International partnerships are essential to addressing critical science and engineering problems. In the global context, U.S. researchers and educators must be able to operate effectively in teams with partners from different national environments and cultural backgrounds. PIRE promotes excellence in science and engineering through international collaboration and facilitates development of a diverse, globally-engaged, U.S. science and engineering workforce.

The program is designed to bring together diverse interdisciplinary groups with expertise in genetics/genomics, immunology, microbiology, and proteomics along with the more traditional areas of parturition research such as maternal fetal medicine, obstetrics, and pediatrics to address scientific issues related to preterm birth. The fund has committed $3 million for the initiative and anticipates awarding five grants of up to $600,000 over a four-year period ($150,000 per year).

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is accepting applications for Round 14 of its Grand Challenges Explorations initiative, an accelerated grant program that encourages bold approaches aimed at improving the lives of the world's poorest people. Anyone - students, scientists, entrepreneurs - with a transformative idea is invited to apply.

The purpose of this Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) is to establish a Model Organisms Screening Center for evaluating the pathogenicity and function of approximately 200 gene variants per year identified through the Undiagnosed Diseases Network (UDN). Responsive applications will propose to establish a screening platform involving at a minimum Drosophila and zebrafish models; the screening pipeline may include additional small animal models or cell-based assays, as appropriate, to analyze the function of UDN gene variants in the context of the respective UDN patient's disease phenotype. This initiative is funded through the NIH Common Fund which supports cross-cutting programs that are expected to have exceptionally high impact.

This FOA seeks to establish technology-development and data-production centers whose mission will be to develop, benchmark, standardize, and validate the next generation of high-throughput technologies that can produce three dimensional physical and functional maps of mammalian genomes, develop predictive models of mammalian genome structure-function relationships, and test the relevance of new nuclear organizational principles within the context of specific biological paradigms and systems.

The purpose of this Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) is to solicit applications that propose to develop and validate physical, chemical and biochemical approaches for measuring properties and dynamics of the three-dimensional organization of the genome that cannot be measured adequately using existing methodologies.

This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) requests applications for the development of medium- to high-throughput "omics" technologies that can be used to explore human pancreatic tissues with single cell- or near single cell- resolution. Successful applicants will join the Consortium on Beta cell Death and Survival (CBDS), whose mission is to identify the mechanisms of beta cell stress and destruction central to the development of Type 1 Diabetes (T1D) in humans, with the long-term goal of protecting the residual beta cell mass in T1D patients as early as possible in the disease process, and preventing the progression towards autoimmunity. 

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is soliciting innovative research proposals in the area of processes and technology for assembly of systems, components, and materials at millimeter scale or larger from nanometer scale constituents. Proposed research should investigate innovative approaches that enable revolutionary advances in science, devices, or systems. Specifically excluded is research that primarily results in evolutionary improvements to the existing state of practice.

In emerging areas of technology at the interface between fields such as the engineering of biology and cellular biomanufacturing, including the field of synthetic biology, there is an even greater need for collaborative precompetitive research that will ensure the success of these nascent technology areas. In particular, research that contributes to the establishment of standards for production; provides tools for the assessment of quality, robustness and stability of the process and product; and develops metrics that will facilitate risk assessment associated with a regulatory framework, will be essential for the eventual commercialization of products from the engineering of biology.

This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) requests applications for the development of medium- to high-throughput "omics" technologies that can be used to explore human pancreatic tissues with single cell- or near single cell- resolution. Successful applicants will join the Consortium on Beta cell Death and Survival (CBDS), whose mission is to identify the mechanisms of beta cell stress and destruction central to the development of Type 1 Diabetes (T1D) in humans, with the long-term goal of protecting the residual beta cell mass in T1D patients as early as possible in the disease process, and preventing the progression towards autoimmunity. CBDS is part of the Human Islet Research Network (HIRN).

Two $55,000 pilot grants will be available to investigators conducting research on Pitt Hopkins Syndrome (PTHS). Pitt Hopkins Syndrome is due to a deficiency in the TCF4 gene and is characterized by severe intellectual disability and developmental delay. Other symptoms include episodic hyperventilation and/or breath-holding (55%-60%), recurrent seizures/epilepsy (40%-50%), gastrointestinal issues, and distinctive facial features. The Pitt Hopkins Research Foundation would like to focus this research on finding therapeutics and a cure for this debilitating syndrome and are not in interested in natural history studies.

One $65,000 pilot grant is available to investigators conducting RASopathies research. The RASopathies are a group of genetic conditions caused by mutations in genes on the Ras-MAPK pathway. These conditions, including Noonan syndrome/Noonan-related conditions (NS), cardio-facio-cutaneous syndrome (CFC), and Costello syndrome (CS) share many clinical features, including developmental delay, gastrointestinal difficulties, skeletal abnormalities, hematologic abnormalities, and growth delay. The grant will be awarded to academic researchers to initiate or advance research and understanding of a treatment or cure that would impact all three conditions (NS, CFC, and CS). The research should include, but would not be limited to, growth and feeding difficulties and related gastrointestinal manifestations of the RASopathies.

The Office of Biological and Environmental Research (BER) of the Office of Science (SC), U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) hereby announces its interest in receiving research applications for novel imaging and measurement technologies for biological systems science. This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) will consider applications for the development of novel imaging instrumentation and measurement technologies that support the integrative analysis of communication among subcellular compartments, between individual microbial cells and within multicellular communities/plant tissues. The goal is to develop in situ, dynamic and nondestructive approaches to enable multifunctional imaging, quantitative flux measurements, and multiscale integrative analysis of bioenergy-relevant plant and microbial systems. 

In 2013, a new NSF-funded petascale computing system, Blue Waters, was deployed at the University of Illinois. The goal of this project and system is to open up new possibilities in science and engineering by providing computational capability that makes it possible for investigators to tackle much larger and more complex research challenges across a wide spectrum of domains. The purpose of this solicitation is to invite research groups to submit requests for allocations of resources on the Blue Waters system. Proposers must show a compelling science or engineering challenge that will require petascale computing resources. Proposers must also be prepared to demonstrate that they have a science or engineering research problem that requires and can effectively exploit the petascale computing capabilities offered by Blue Waters. Proposals from or including junior researchers are encouraged, as one of the goals of this solicitation is to build a community capable of using petascale computing.

The Theoretical Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics (TAMOP) program supports theoretical and computational research in all areas of atomic structure, the molecular structure of small molecules, electron, and atomic collisions, photoionization and photodetachment of electrons from atoms and small molecules, time-dependent interactions with atoms and small molecules, quantum optics, ultracold phenomena in Bose and Fermi gases, and quantum information. Investigations primarily directed toward a theoretical understanding of larger molecules or condensed matter systems should be directed toward the appropriate programs in the Division of Chemistry or the Division of Materials Research.

We are currently accepting abstract submissions for the 2015 Annual Meeting. All abstracts or research-in-progress submissions will be peer-reviewed, and those that are accepted will be published in The Ohio Journal of Science.

The Dreyfus Prize in the Chemical Sciences is awarded to an individual in a selected area of chemistry to recognize exceptional and original research that has advanced the field in a major way. The prize is awarded biennially and consists of a monetary award of $250,000, a medal, and a citation.

The mission of the Simons Foundation is to advance the frontiers of research in mathematics and the basic sciences. To that end, the foundation is inviting applications for the 2015 Simons Fellows Programs in both mathematics and theoretical physics. Through the two programs, the foundation will award grants of up to $100,000 to university faculty for a research leave from classroom teaching and administrative obligations of up to a semester in order to help boost their creativity and/or provide intellectual stimulation. The goal of the program is to make it easier to take such leaves, or to extend sabbatical leaves by an extra half year.

Two $60,000 pilot grants are available for Lymphangioleiomyomatosis (LAM) research. Focus is on translational proposals with strong likelihood of future federal funding, that use LAM samples, models or patient data, and which have the potential to favorably impact human health will be given priority. Examples of desirable topic areas include identification of molecular targets, biomarker development, and biomarker driven small pilot trials

Announced in June 2013 by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and former UK Foreign Secretary William Hague and formally launched in October 2013 by Rt Hon. David Willetts MP, the Global Innovation Initiative is a higher education partnership grant opportunity established between the United States and the United Kingdom aimed at strengthening multilateral research collaborations between universities in the U.S., UK, and other selected countries. The Global Innovation Initiative will award grants to university consortia focusing on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM)-related issues of global significance that foster cutting-edge multinational research and strengthen institutional international partnerships