Federal Grant Award Summary

Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine received a $607,409 Project Grant award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Office of the Director under the Research Infrastructure Programs (CFDA 93.351) to acquire and install a new 120-kilovolt Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM) for the Center for Advanced Microscopy. The award, obligated on May 15, 2026, with a completion date of May 14, 2027, will replace the institution's existing FEI Tecnai Spirit G2 TEM that has reached end-of-life status and experienced significant operational disruptions due to camera failures. The new instrument will serve 16 NIH-funded investigators conducting 33 NIH-funded research projects across multiple departments including surgery, infectious diseases, microbiology, immunology, cardiovascular biology, developmental biology, neurosciences, nephrology, and ophthalmology.

The acquisition of this microscopy platform will restore research capabilities and enable the continued production of high-quality electron microscopy imaging essential to ongoing biomedical research activities at Northwestern University's Chicago facility. The Research Infrastructure Programs, administered by the NIH Office of Research Infrastructure Programs, specifically supports the acquisition and modernization of scientific instrumentation and shared research resources that advance the NIH's research mission. This award directly addresses the critical infrastructure needs of the institution's research community by providing state-of-the-art TEM technology to support continued scientific productivity and maintain research quality standards across multiple disease and biological research domains.