Project Grant W911NF1710336

This National Science Foundation (NSF) Biological Sciences (CFDA 47.074) Project Grant award of $343,710.00 to the University of Massachusetts Lowell will provide mentored training and support for a mid-career associate professor to integrate evolutionary genomics and biomaterial engineering expertise. The project aims to characterize the functional role of specific spider silk proteins in fiber mechanics and assemble a public spider silk protein database to support interdisciplinary research...

This National Science Foundation project grant award of $276,000 provides funding from February 1, 2023 through January 31, 2025 to advance research on spider silk structure, mechanics and evolutionary ecology under the Biological Sciences federal grant program (CFDA 47.074). Specifically, the award will support a postdoctoral research fellowship studying the unique horizontal orb webs and silk properties of the Wendilgarda clara spider species that lives at the air-water interface of streams....

This $375,000 three-year Project Grant from the National Science Foundation's Division of Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental, and Transport Systems under the Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) will fund collaborative research between the University of Delaware and other partners to investigate room-temperature superfluorescence in multi-fluorophore protein cages. The researchers will chemically bind hundreds of molecular dyes to the protein shell of a small plant virus to induce synchronized...

This $388,983 federal Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Division of Chemistry's Chemical Measurement & Imaging Program and Chemistry of Life Processes Program supports the development of a new optical microscope by Professor Eric Potma at the University of California, Irvine. The instrument leverages chiral sum-frequency generation (SFG) microscopy to visualize protein structures in cells and tissues without the need for chemical labeling. This label-free imaging...

The National Science Foundation awarded a three-year $400,000 project grant to the University of Rochester under the Mathematical and Physical Sciences program (CFDA 47.049). The grant supports collaborative research between the University of Rochester, New Jersey Institute of Technology, and University of Virginia to investigate the supramolecular assembly of beta-sheet nanofibrils composed of mirror-image peptides. The team will determine the structure of these systems with near-atomic...

This Project Grant from the National Science Foundation supports collaborative research on silk protein innovation and novelty titled "Integrating Across Disciplines to Decipher Silk Fiber Evolution." The $655,390 award will fund research from August 1, 2022 to July 31, 2027. The research team, led by George Washington University, will take an integrative approach examining the molecular, developmental, and functional basis of natural silks across diverse uses. A team of natural...

Under this $200,000 Project Grant from the National Science Foundation Division of Chemistry's Mathematical and Physical Sciences program (CFDA 47.049), the New Jersey Institute of Technology will collaborate with the University of Rochester and University of Virginia to investigate the supramolecular assembly of beta-sheet nanofibrils composed of mirror-image peptides. The collaborative team will determine the structure of these systems with near-atomic precision using cryo-electron...

This $176,198 project grant from the National Science Foundation Division of Emerging Frontiers under the Biological Sciences federal grant program (CFDA 47.074) will fund collaborative research on silk protein innovation and novelty. The American Museum of Natural History will integrate expertise across disciplines to decipher silk fiber evolution in hundreds of thousands of species. Researchers will examine the molecular, developmental, and functional basis of natural silks using genomics,...

This three-year National Science Foundation Project Grant of $375,000 supports research into room-temperature superfluorescence in multi-fluorophore protein cages. The grantee, Trustees of Indiana University, will collaborate with researchers to tease out the mechanism by which viral protein scaffolds promote coupling and synchronization of molecular dyes at room temperature. Approaches will couple experimental spectroscopic and molecular biology manipulations with predictive simulations to...

This federal Project Grant award, funded by the National Science Foundation's Division of Chemistry under the Mathematical and Physical Sciences program (CFDA 47.049), aims to reveal the atomic structure of collagen, the most abundant protein in the human body. The principal investigator, Dr. Jeffrey D. Hartgerink of Rice University, will receive $600,000 over a 3-year period starting July 1, 2025 to explore the self-assembly of collagen triple helices into higher-order structures. The...