NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – The International Human Frontier Science Program Organization said today it has awarded nearly $55 million to fund over 200 researchers around the world who are pursuing a wide array of life sciences research projects, including a number of genomic and molecular studies.
HFSPO is funded by managing partner nations, including EU member states, the US, the UK, Canada, India, New Zealand, and Japan.
The new funding round breaks down into three general types of awards, including research project grants, fellowship awards, and career development awards.
The 2014 HFSP Research Grants will provide $35 million to fund 24 Program Grant teams, involving 78 scientists, and 10 Young Investigator Grant teams, involving 28 scientists. Both of these grant programs provide $110,000 to $125,000 per year for three years to each member of the teams. These collaborative awards fund a range of projects under the umbrella theme of complex mechanisms of living organisms, with a particular emphasis is given to "cutting-edge, risky projects," HFSPO said.
The Young Investigator Grants fund teams of scientists who are all within five years of obtaining their first independent positions, while the Program Grants are open to researchers at any stage of their careers.
International collaborations are encouraged for these projects, and this crop of awardees is spread across 17 different countries, including 51 labs in Europe, 34 in North America, eight in Japan, and seven in Canada, and investigators from Argentina, China, and Mexico.
The HFSP Fellowships grants will provide an estimated $16 million to fund 90 fellows, each of which will receive around $180,000 spread over three years. These awardees include 80 Long-Term Fellowships, which support life scientists seeking to extend their expertise into another branch of biology, and 10 Cross-Disciplinary Fellowships, which fund young scientists with PhD degrees in physics, chemistry, computer science, or engineering who will "link life sciences to neighboring disciplines," HFSPO said.
HFSPO awarded 12 Career Development Awards, which provide $300,000 over three years to help scientists who are HFSP fellows to launch their first independent labs.
The research grants, career development awards, and fellowships will support a wide range of research programs that investigate genomic, genetic, molecular, cellular, and other life sciences research themes.
The Research Project Grants, for example, include a study of the role of non-coding RNA regulatory networks in cancer that is led by Brian Brown at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York and includes partners in Italy and Germany; research into the structure and function of the human microbiome and polymicrobial colonies headed by Sam Brown at the University of Edinburgh and including a partner at the University of Texas at Austin; and a project looking at genome folding in bacteria led by Remus Dame of the Leiden Institute of Chemistry that includes investigators in the US, UK, and Germany, among others.