Garden Grants - Protein Engineering

Program Status: 2024 cohort funded; next cycle TBD

Geographic Scope: International (16 funded projects across 6 countries)

Focus Areas:

• Protein engineering applied to climate sustainability
• Direct air capture (carbonic anhydrase)
• Plastics degradation and upcycling
• Biomanufacturing and industrial biotech
• Carbon dioxide removal
• Enhanced rock weathering
• Photosynthesis improvement
• Biofuels and renewable energy
• Bioremediation
• Food/agriculture innovation

Program Philosophy:
Garden Grants is a fieldbuilding program inspired by Y Combinator and Fast Grants models. It separates grant proposals into public problem statements and private solution statements to stimulate community knowledge, discourse, and collaboration while protecting intellectual property.

Key Features:

• Fast turnaround: announcement to funding decision in ~10 weeks
• Transparent review process with detailed feedback for all applicants
• Yearlong cohort program with structured meetings, mentorship, and networking
• Collaborative problem identification and research community engagement
• Emphasis on de-risking ambitious, translational ideas

Eligibility:

• Early-stage research at the translational intersection of protein engineering and sustainability
• Projects must address identified climate or sustainability challenges
• Teams should demonstrate courage, clarity of problem statement, and innovation in proposed solutions

What They Fund:

• Early-stage experimental validation
• "Big if true" ideas that need de-risking
• First experiments to prove feasibility
• Ambitious translational research

What They Don't Fund:
Not explicitly stated, but implied exclusions based on program focus:

• Non-climate related protein engineering
• Late-stage commercialization projects
• Projects without clear climate/sustainability impact

2024 Funded Cohort (16 projects):

• Ahmed Badran (Scripps Research Institute) - RuBisCO enzyme engineering for CO2 capture
• Anum Glasgow (Columbia University) - Engineered nutritional yeasts for cell-based meals
• Benjamin Scott (University of Saskatchewan) - Enzymes for sustainable fertilizer
• César Ramírez-Sarmiento (Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile) - PET plastic upcycling
• Jenny Molloy (ICGEB) - Carbonic anhydrase immobilization for DAC
• Logan Morton (Tufts University) - Renewable silk filtration systems
• Manvitha Ponnapati (Cambridge, MA) - Ultrastable carbonic anhydrase variants
• Maria Astolfi (Berkeley, CA) - Enhanced P450s for biomanufacturing
• Mijndert van der Spek (Heriot-Watt University) - CALORIE-DAC
• Nathan Ennist (University of Washington) - De novo protein design for solar fuels
• Pascal Notin (Harvard Medical School) - Deep learning designed carbonic anhydrase
• Philip Romero (University of Wisconsin) - Silicase enzymes for carbon-sequestering agriculture
• Pranam Chatterjee (Duke University) - Metal-binding proteins for bioremediation
• Samuel Thompson (Stanford University) - Proteins for biofuel production in organic solvents
• Shiqiang Gao (Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg) - CO2 uptake and water retention
• Sonja Salmon (North Carolina State University) - Better carbonic anhydrase design

Application Process

Timeline (2024 cycle):

• Announcement: August 2023
• Application deadline: November 2023
• Funding decisions: Early December 2023 (10-week total cycle)

Application Structure - Dual Submission Model:

1. Public Problem Statement:
   • Describe the important climate/sustainability problem being addressed
   • Convince reviewers of problem significance
   • Over 50 applicants chose to share problem statements publicly
   • Enables community collaboration and knowledge sharing
2. Private Solution Statement:
   • Technical details of the proposed solution
   • Confidential submission (protects intellectual property)
   • Only shared with funding reviewers

Required Proposal Elements:

• Clear problem identification
• Compelling solution narrative
• Clarity on the first experiment needed to de-risk the idea
• Explanation of how work fits into a larger journey toward global impact
• Demonstrates ambition and feasibility

Review Process:

• 350 reviews across 65 applications (2024 cycle)
• 750 inline discussion comments providing feedback
• Transparent feedback provided to all applicants regardless of funding decision
• Reviewers communicate directly with applicants to strengthen proposals
• Platform: Experiment.com

Selection Criteria:

• Strong problem statements that identify important blockers
• Creative and clear solution approaches
• Feasibility of first experiments
• Clarity on experimental de-risking pathway
• Ambition and potential for climate impact
• Team track record and credibility

Award Structure:

• 2024: $1.35M total across 16 teams (average ~$84,375 per grant)
• Grants support early-stage experimental work
• Can be combined with other funders

Post-Award Support:

• Yearlong cohort program
• Lightweight structured meetings
• Tailored mentorship (downstream funding, industrial applications, scientific expertise)
• Networking opportunities with other grantees
• Mid-year check-in
• Demo Day for showcasing research progress
• Connection to broader funder ecosystem