Office Hour

NEED HELP PREPARING FOR THE CAREER DEADLINE? CHECK OUT UPCOMING INFORMATIONAL WEBINARS

If you are considering applying for the National Science Foundation’s most prestigious awards in support of early-career faculty, consider attending an upcoming CAREER program informational session. The deadline for CAREER submissions (NSF 22-586) is July 26th, so get your questions in early!  Program directors from the BIO directorates and the CAREER Coordinating Committee will be available to answer your questions at the following sessions.

May 10, 2023
2 – 3 PM ET		MCB Virtual Office Hours: Faculty Early-Career Development program (CAREER)
May 15, 2023
3 – 4:30 PM ET		2023 NSF CAREER Program Informational Webinar
May 16, 2023
3 – 4 PM ET		Division of Biological Infrastructure (DBI) Virtual Office Hours
May 18, 2023
1 – 2 PM ET		May Virtual Office Hours with the Division of Integrative Organismal Systems (IOS)
May 25, 2023
3 – 4:30 PM ET		2023 NSF CAREER Program Informational Webinar MCB/BIO Program Director, Engin Serpersu, will be available to answer BIO-specific questions

Designer Cells Welcomes Proposals for the Second Year

In 2020, NSF’s Division of Molecular and Cellular Biosciences together with the Division of Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental and Transports Systems (CBET) in the Directorate for Engineering (ENG) and the Division of Social and Economic Sciences (SES) in the Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE) launched a new solicitation, Designing Synthetic Cells Beyond the Bounds of Evolution (Designer Cells) NSF 21-531.  With this solicitation, NSF hoped to continue to support advances in building synthetic cells and leverage the success of programs like Understanding the Rules of Life: Building a Synthetic Cell. Projects submitted to the Designer Cells solicitation used synthetic biology to address at least one of the following research areas:

  1. identifying the minimal requirements for the processes of life;
  2. addressing fundamental questions in the evolution of life or to explore biological diversity beyond that which currently exists in nature;
  3. leveraging synthetic systems for innovative biotechnology applications. 

The program is now accepting proposals for its second cohort. The due date for proposals for the second year is February 1, 2022.

In its first cohort, the program made 12 awards.  These first awards explored a number of exciting themes including building synthetic organelles, exploring non-natural or synthetic approaches to information storage and decoding, and creating cells with new tunable properties.  One exciting thematic area represented in a number of 2021 Designer Cells awards was synthetic modifications that change information storage and decoding in cells.  A full list of the awards made in the first year of Designer Cells can be found here.  

In this second year of the solicitation, Program Director Anthony Garza says that he “hopes to see proposals that continue to push to boundaries of what cells can do, either by adding in new functionality, or minimizing cell components, but still getting functional synthetic cells.” Program Director Steve Peretti said he “would like to see the community exploit synthetic cell technology in new application areas.” 

Opportunities to Learn More

Garza and Peretti are holding a Virtual Office Hour on Designer Cells and other new opportunities on November 17, 2021 at 2 PM EST.  You can register here. 

BIO and COVID-19 Recovery Efforts

Updated 5 Mar 2021: A recording of the session is now available (Access Passcode: ++6ZM*=i).

From BioBuzz, the blog of the Directorate for Biological Sciences (BIO): “Throughout the past year, the National Science Foundation (NSF) has supported the research community by providing guidance, funding flexibilities, and deadline extensions. This support will remain a top priority for NSF as we seek to recover from the pandemic. Up-to-date information on these offerings continues to be added to the agency’s Coronavirus Information page.”

A BIO-wide virtual office hour event covering how BIO is supporting those impacted will be held Tuesday, Mar. 2, 11 am – 12 pm EST. For more information on these efforts and to register for the office hour, read the full post, linked here.