•          Social/behavioral research
•          Biomedical research
•          Innovative research
•          Regulatory landscape
•          Community engagement
  

The Meeting of the Minds Summit is a forward-looking conference for sharing strategies with scalable solutions in urban neighborhoods.The summit will include speakers and sessions that aim to share innovative sustainability and technology solutions between people from around the globe.

Visit the Meeting of the Minds website.

Atomwise Inc seeks proposals from innovative university scientists to receive 72 potential medicines, generated specifically for their research by artificial intelligence. The Artificial Intelligence Molecular Screen (AIMS) program is designed to dramatically accelerate the race towards life-saving drugs by analyzing millions of compounds for each disease. Contributing cutting-edge AI technology and delivering physical molecules to as many as 100 labs, the program is the first of its kind.

AIMS is a streamlined program. Short applications are submitted online, and recipients will be announced three months from the submission deadline. No preliminary data is required and projects showing success can receive further support.

Atomwise develops artificial intelligence systems for drug discovery. Its groundbreaking AtomNet technology reasons like a human medicinal chemist, using powerful Deep Learning algorithms and supercomputers to analyze millions of potential treatments each day. 

Historically, discovering a single new medicine cost billions of dollars and took an average of 15 years – putting such research outside the reach of academic scientists. Atomwise helps predict the effectiveness of new drugs more rapidly, much like software used to simulate aircraft, buildings, and computer chips. 

Atomwise has already launched 27 drug discovery projects with leading research institutions. These partnerships are advancing research on diseases as diverse as Ebola, multiple sclerosis, and leukemia. Molecules predicted by Atomwise have become lead medicinal chemistry candidates and successfully treated animals in trials. 

Application Deadline: June 12, 2017

For more information visit the  Atomwise website.

The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) has announced that it seeks to appoint up to 20 new biomedical researchers through a national open competition. HHMI recently increased the standard term for HHMI investigators from five to seven years, providing longer term, flexible support as these scientists explore new research territory. The initiative represents an investment of approximately $168 million in basic biomedical research over the next seven years.

The HHMI investigator competition is open to basic researchers and physician scientists at more than 200 eligible institutions who bring innovative approaches to the study of biological problems in biomedical disciplines, plant biology, evolutionary biology, biophysics, chemical biology, biomedical engineering, and computational biology. Those selected in this competition will receive a seven-year appointment to HHMI, which is renewable pending favorable scientific review.

HHMI encourages its investigators to push their research fields into new areas of inquiry. By employing scientists as HHMI investigators—rather than awarding them research grants—the Institute is guided by the principle of “people, not projects.” HHMI investigators have the freedom to explore and, if necessary, to change direction in their research. Moreover, they have support to follow their ideas through to fruition—even if that process takes many years.

Application Deadline: June 27, 2017

For more information visit the HHMI website.

The Methods Validation Grants will focus on validating pre-existing methods including algorithms and analytic tools used to maximize the use of data in predicting outcomes. 

The purpose of the Methods Validation Grants is to identify methods to improve the integration and analysis of data within and across large and diverse datasets using cloud computing. A successful grant will include information on how the previous method or tool was used, the evaluation and validation of the proposed method, and the plan for utilizing the AHA Precision Medicine Platform http://precision.heart.org to serve the greater scientific community. 

The award seeks to test and validate:

• new machine learning algorithms to curate and harmonize data in the cloud;
• new natural language processing methods for electronic health records in the cloud;
• new pipelines to enable more effective and efficient workflows for analyzing data in the cloud;
• New pipelines for data curation in the cloud

These grants are open to all scientists. Knowledge of biology and/or computer science may be helpful. Collaboration with other scientists (in any field) is optional. Applicants are to provide proposals that adhere to the above broad objectives while specifically addressing the outlined goals. Faculty/ staff members conducting independent research at time of application. At application, principal investigator must hold an M.D., Ph.D., D.O. or equivalent terminal doctoral degree and must meet institutional requirements for grant submission. There are no field of study restrictions so long as the applicant demonstrates ability to complete the project proposal with the allotted time and money made available by the grant. Awardee must meet American Heart Association citizenship criteria and research status if at a foreign university throughout the duration of the award. Applicants are not required to reside in the U.S. for any period of time before applying for American Heart Association funding. 

Application Deadline: June 29, 2017

For more information visit the AHA website.

To support strategic scientific dialogue around the concept of extending the vision of “21st century toxicology” to the wider biosciences, Humane Society International and The Humane Society of the United States are offering grants of up to $10,000 (USD) in funding to support the development and open-access publication of in-depth, independent review articles in discrete areas of human disease/biomedicine by health scientists with relevant expertise.

Each review should:

• Examine the state of the science in a specific area of human biomedicine, including current understanding of the underlying pathophysiological pathways and networks;
• Critically evaluate the human relevance, translational success and limitations of conventional research models;
• Offer concrete recommendations/roadmap for optimizing the funding and use of advanced, human-specific tools and approaches (pathway paradigm as an organizing framework, primary human cells/tissues, iPSC, organoids, bioengineering, computational systems biology modeling, etc.) in the disease area under discussion; and
• Be accepted for publication in a high-visibility, peer-reviewed journal.

A scientific workshop will be convened in early 2019 to explore the findings and recommendations of funded review articles. Lead authors will be invited to attend and present their work, and contribute to a subsequent workshop report. Travel, accommodations and meals will be arranged.

For more information visit the HSI website.

Limited Competition for NIH-Industry Program: Discovering New Therapeutic Uses for Existing Molecules (UG3/UH3)