Funds Designated for Lab Technology

Amount: $250 Million

Recipient: SUNY (State University of New York) Research Foundation

Funder: Empire State Development

Date Announced: November

Empire State Development, a private company created to support businesses in New York State, will provide the funding in the form of a capital grant to the Foundation specifically for the purchase of tools for a new global materials engineering R&D facility. The facility will be located at the new Materials Engineering Technology Accelerator (META Center). Located on the SUNY Polytechnic Institute campus in Albany, New York, the META Center will be funded by a $100 million investment in leases by materials engineering company Applied Materials. In total, the public-private partnership is valued at $600 million over seven years, including research grants totaling $25 million, with a matching amount coming from Applied Materials. The META Center will open in 2019.

 Harvard Medical School Receives Largest Gift Ever

Amount: $200 Million

Recipient: Harvard Medical School

Funder: Blavatnik Family Foundation

Date Announced: November

The funding will be used to enhance the School’s research and therapeutic development capabilities, including investments in cryo-EM resources at the Harvard Cryo-Electron Microscopy Center for Structural Biology, single-cell sequencing and high-throughput screening. The gift will also go to fund researcher recruitment, creating a core facility dedicated to life science data science. Grants will be funded for research collaborations across the School’s different institutions and disciplines. To further this aim, the new Blavatnik Harvard Life Lab Longwood will be home to early-stage startups founded by Harvard associates. Finally, the School’s 10 academic departments will now be known as the Blavatnik Institute at Harvard Medical School.

New Monies for Cystic Fibrosis Research

 Amount: $100 Million

Recipient: Various

Funder: Cystic Fibrosis Foundation

Date Announced: October

The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation has announced a $100 million, 5-year Infection Research Initiative for detecting, diagnosing, preventing and treating infections associated with cystic fibrosis. The funding represents two times the amount of its previous five-year spending. Research on micro-organisms will include detection and treatment. In 2018, the Foundation awarded $124 million in awards for all cystic fibrosis research to academia and industry.

NIH Announces CRISPR Work 

Amount: $86 Million

Recipient: Various

Funder: NIH

Date Announced: October

The NIH Common Fund has awarded 21 Somatic Cell Genome Editing Grants to 17 institutions and one company. The grants are part of the new six-year, $190 million Somatic Cell Genome Editing program. The latest grants provide five years of funding for researchers to further develop gene editing techniques. The effort involves improving the effectiveness, safety, validation of gene editing as well as new animal models created using gene editing. A “genome editing toolkit,” including new techniques, will be created.

Chan Zuckerberg Initiative Launches New Awards

Amount: $51.95 Million

Recipient: Various

Funder: Chan Zuckerberg Initiative

Date Announced: December

The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI), a philanthropic organization, has established the CZI Neurodegeneration Challenge Network and announced the initial round of funding for research on the basic biology of neurodegenerative disease. The Network is designed to foster collaboration across disciplines and resources, and support new approaches, including a more holistic understanding of such diseases. The funding consists of $42.5 million in CZI Ben Barres Early Career Acceleration Awards for 17 early career researchers and $9 million in CZI Collaborative Science Awards for 9 research teams. The CZI received 700 applications for the awards.