Motivation

The Engineering+ Health Institute is engaged in an effort to advance antibody design, engineering, and evolution. We would like to fund projects that contribute synergistically to our institute’s antibody generation technologies and/or propose to leverage them in innovative applications.

Program Overview

Supported by a generous gift from the Samueli Foundation, the Engineering+ Health Institute focuses on rapid antibody engineering and evolution. Recent developments in protein design and directed evolution have advanced synthetic antibody discovery and engineering to the point where we can rapidly generate high-affinity antibodies against user-defined epitopes. Our institute continues to develop the underlying technologies for antibody generation while applying them to problems in life sciences and health. In this solicitation, we seek two types of proposals…

Category 1: proposals focusing on expanding our institute’s antibody engineering and evolution capabilities in synergistic ways (e.g., new computational design strategies, new high-throughput screening and characterization technologies, etc.)

Category 2: proposals that wish to apply our institute’s antibody engineering and evolution capabilities to unique problems (e.g., the generation or optimization of therapeutic binders against novel targets, etc.)

To understand our institute’s core antibody generation capabilities, please review these two publications:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41589-021-00832-4
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.03.14.585103v2
Other publications that describe or feature capabilities of our institute include:
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acssynbio.4c00370
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.04.680454v1
If your project does not directly fit within the two categories but is relevant to our institute’s capabilities, please feel free to e-mail us with a brief project description to discuss its appropriateness (see contact information below).

Separately, our institute is interested in gaining access to purified proteins whose structures have been solved only in the past 2 years (2023 or after) and that ideally have low sequence homology to structures already in the PDB. These proteins should be natural sequences, as opposed to computationally designed sequences. Please contact us (see contact information below) if you have access to such proteins. We are interested in obtaining such proteins to test computational design models with low risk of training data contamination.

Application Deadline

Due date: December 1, 2025, Monday, by 5:00 pm PST
Submission form: Applications must be submitted to the Google Form, “Engineering+ Health Institute Pilot Project Solicitation” by the deadline.

Eligibility Requirements

Applicants must be a PI at UC Irvine and have an active research group, as partly evidenced by existing funding
Proposals should only have one PI
Each PI may submit only one application

Budget

First phase (2 years): $40K direct per year
Second phase (2 years): $80K (or more) direct per year
No PI salary support allowed
Note that the institute plans to contribute training in antibody design and evolution, a few antibody engineering/evolution campaigns, and other resources to the project as appropriate. These contributions will be funded separately.
We plan to fund 3-5 projects for the first phase and 2 projects for the second phase

Period of Performance

2 to 4 years: First phase – January 1, 2026 – December 31, 2027; Second phase (after down selection based on project progress) – January 1, 2028 – December 31, 2029
Funds unspent by end of each phase, must be returned to SSoE
No-cost extensions are prohibited
No PI salary support allowed

Application Details – Applications are limited to 2 pages total (11 point font, 1” margins, single spaced) and should include the following:

Proposal title: A concise and descriptive title for the proposal.
Overview: Briefly summarize the proposed work and its main goals, how it will add to or leverage our institute’s antibody generation technologies, how success in the main goals can be determined, and the impact of success. Please overview the proposed work for both the first and potential second phase.
Project details: Technical description of the proposed research and activities. For Category 1 proposals, emphasize how the project will expand the institute’s current antibody generation technologies in synergistic ways. For Category 2 proposals, emphasize how the institute’s current antibody generation technologies will be applied, with discussion of feasibility as well as how purified targets will be sourced if applicable. Please describe the proposed work for both the first and potential second phase.
Division of responsibilities: Our institute expects to contribute to the project. For example, our institute may provide training in and/or run computational design and/or evolution pipelines for the project. Please describe what aspects of the project will ideally be carried out by institute staff and what aspects of the project will ideally be done by the proposer’s group. The institute’s contributions will be separately funded. If selected, we will meet to discuss division of responsibilities and collaboration in greater detail.
Team members: Please outline who in your group will be involved and their expected contribution to the project.
Budget breakdown: Please estimate the amount of the budget that will be allocated to support personnel and the amount of the budget that will be allocated to materials and other services. If selected, a more detailed budget may be requested.
References: List any references cited, if applicable (not included in the 2-page count).
Current funding: Please include a list of current funding to your group (e.g., your NIH other support form or similar), if applicable (not included in the 2-page count).

Reporting Expectations

After each phase, the PI must submit a 1-page report that includes the research accomplishments achieved in the project and a summary of how the funds were used. In addition, any publications (or publication drafts) resulting from the project should be attached. This report will be used in the selection of phase 2 awards based on the promise of results achieved in phase 1.

Applications will be reviewed by a committee and evaluated on the following criteria:

Importance and uniqueness of project goals. The committee will focus on considering the impact of the project on life sciences and human health (broadly defined) if completely successful. The committee will also focus on whether the proposed work leverages discoveries, capabilities, and/or expertises unique to the PI’s lab.
Synergy with the institute’s capabilities and goals. The committee will evaluate how much the project adds to and/or benefits from the capabilities and goals of the institute.
Feasibility. The committee will evaluate whether significant progress is likely to be made with the resources available and approaches involved in the project’s first phase.

Contact Information

Please contact Emily-Mae Gong, egong3@uci.edu, Administrative Analyst, with any questions.

To apply for this funding opportunity please visit forms.gle.