Investigator Program

Biohub has been huge for me in a couple of ways. First, there’s obviously the money. Having money that’s not tied really to a specific project is so freeing, in that you can do whatever you think is the most impactful science at a given moment in time. You’re not bound by deliverables that you outlined three years ago. You’re able to pivot.

And by attending the biweekly Investigator meetings, you are always seeing science that you ordinarily wouldn’t see because of the breadth of expertise of the people that are speaking. So for me, it’s both made me aware of areas of science that I didn’t know about before and introduced me to the people who are working in those areas. So if we want to move into those areas, now we have collaborators.”

Being able to use the funds in an unrestricted manner is incredibly helpful because it allows us to test our riskiest stuff, get it to a point of seed funding, and then potentially graduate it to a more sponsored research grant. And that allows us to take the money much further than if it were applying just to one research project, because you get an amplification.

To get federal funding, you need a specific goal and preliminary data. And if you’re talking about your riskiest projects, you usually don’t have much preliminary data. Once you’ve kind of de-risked it, you can apply for a much bigger pot of money to take that work forward. So it really is kind of like the initial fuse for a lot of these ideas. And to me it’s incredibly valuable to work that way.”

Biohub funding has allowed me to pivot my lab into becoming a leader in developing tools to covalently label proteins for monitoring their conformational landscape. We are now recognized as leading experts in the field of HDX-MS. This shift in my lab’s focus was entirely possible because of Biohub funding. Biohub funding allowed me to purchase instrumentation that — because I was not an expert at the time — I would never have been able to get via more standard funding approaches. In fact, I was just awarded a five-year NSF grant to further develop our HDX-MS methodologies, and all the preliminary data was based on Biohub funding.”

During the first year, the Investigator Program has enhanced my research through funding, ongoing and new collaborations (Rapid Response Team and Data Science Team), and by lowering the barrier to accessing certain technologies (the Genomics Platform). Beyond these ‘direct’ impacts on my research, the opportunity to get to know and interact with other Biohub Investigators (through regular Investigator meetings) has been one of the highlights of the year. These interactions not only facilitate new collaborations but, by introducing me to researchers that I wouldn’t otherwise interact with, have exposed me to new (and fascinating) problems and approaches at multiple scales. While not immediately applicable to my ongoing research, these interactions are enriching and stimulate exploring new directions.”

The greatest thing about being part of the Investigator Program is that I am learning so much. This seems trivial, but it is very hard for me to find opportunities to learn about what is going more generally across fields. The content in the Investigators’ presentations are amazing, and it is incredible to learn where the state of the art and big discoveries are in the coming years. The data approaches are very relevant to my own work. As a leader, this learning is very important as I understand the future of biomedical research.”