April 2005
Bioengineering Professor Luke Lee was awarded a $75,000 research grant from National Academies Keck Futures Initiative today, for his research topic “Quantum Nanoplasmonic Probes for In Vivo Molecular Imaging”.
The research projects that were awarded funding represent a wide range of approaches to the field of interdisciplinary research on nanoscience and nanotechnology, which was the subject of the second FUTURES conference, called “Designing Nanostructures at the Interface between Biomedical and Physical Systems,” held last November in Irvine, CA.
These competitive seed grants aim to fill a critical missing link between research on bold new ideas and major federal funding programs, which do not currently provide grants in areas that are considered risky or unusual. The grants allow researchers to start developing a line of inquiry by recruiting students and postdoctoral fellows, purchasing equipment, and acquiring preliminary data – all of which can position the researchers to compete for larger awards from other public and private sources.
The National Academies Keck Futures Initiative was launched in 2003 to stimulate new modes of scientific inquiry and break down the conceptual and institutional barriers to interdisciplinary research. Funded by a $40 million grant from the W.M. Keck Foundation, the Futures Initiative is designed to enable researchers from different disciplines to focus on new questions upon which they can base entirely new research, and to encourage better communication between scientists as well as between the scientific community and the public.