Limited Submission Opportunity: Mathers Foundation Grant Program Spring 2025

Applications due Dec. 10, 2024

These instructions are for VU investigators. VUMC investigators should visit the OOR funding opportunity site.

Vanderbilt University may submit up to three letters of intent for the Spring 2025 cycle of the Mathers Foundation grant program.

Overview

The mission of The G. Harold and Leila Y. Mathers Foundation is to advance knowledge in the life sciences by sponsoring scientific research that will benefit mankind. The Foundation's grants program seeks to support innovative, potentially transformative basic science projects in fields including immunology, microbiome, structural biology, cellular physiology, cancer biology, genetics, genomics, microbiology and infectious diseases, stem cell biology, and neuroscience. The grant duration is three years and requested budgets should be realistic for the project (consider the type of investigation, models used, supply requirements, size of the team, etc.) Grant budgets cannot exceed $600-$700k (including indirect costs capped at 10%) over three years.

Funding Priorities:

• The Foundation primarily supports basic science, ideally with potential translational applications.
• In general, the Mathers Foundation reviewers look for innovative, novel proposals, which have scientific merit with an established published proof of concept, and which may not be fundable at the federal level.
• Immunology, microbiome, cancer biology, genomics, structural biology, cellular physiology, neuroscience, etc. are noteworthy examples of current research support. Plant Biology, Oceanography, Space Exploration, and Global Warming research will not be considered for support.
• Covid-19 related research projects (aims or sub-aims) will not be considered.
• Medical imaging technology related projects and/or electrical engineering technology development projects will not be considered.
• Requests for funding previous federally supported research, and/or applications pending federal approval will not be accorded priority consideration.
• The Foundation does not support research conducted in human subjects and will not fund requests for clinical trials or drug discovery. The Foundation will not support research projects it considers pre-clinical drug development.
• LOIs that have been declined should not be resubmitted.
• Renewal applications for the same or related research will not be accorded priority consideration, and applicants should consider proposing a new research direction.

Eligibility:

• Applicants, including collaborators, must be independent investigators with their own fully functional and equipped labs.
• Only one application per investigator per cycle is allowed.

Budget Considerations:

The foundation will not support:

• Requests for student tuition nor requests for equipment costs over $5,000. (Benefits/fringe rate, including health insurance may be approved on a case-by-case basis, notwithstanding agreements with other agencies, i.e. DHHS)
• Construction design, building costs, renovations, etc.
• Cost Sharing- The total cost of the project should be no higher than $700,000 (budget limit including indirect costs)
• Computers, computer-generated systems/and AI data generation

See the program page for more information.

Internal Application Process

Interested faculty should click here to submit an application for the internal LSO competition and to find additional information about the opportunity. The deadline for the internal competition is Dec. 10, 2024.

Any questions about this opportunity or the LSO process may be directed to [email protected].