Michelson Prizes: Next Generation Grants

Funder: Human Immunome Project (HIP) and Michelson Medical Research Foundation (MMRF)

Geographic Scope: Global (no geographic restrictions mentioned)

Focus Areas:

• Human immunology research
• Vaccine discovery and development
• Immunotherapy research
• Understanding human immune variation and responses to infection
• Mucosal vaccines
• T cell immunology
• Antibody discovery and characterization
• Sex-based differences in immune responses

Target Population:

• Early-career scientists and researchers
• Assistant professors
• Postdoctoral fellows
• PhD students

Eligibility:
Proposals must demonstrate:

• Novelty in approach
• Potential to advance vaccines, immunotherapies, and understanding of human immune responses
• Bold, high-risk, high-reward research ideas

Selection Process:

• Proposals reviewed by a distinguished committee of internationally recognized scientists
• Recipients honored at virtual award ceremony in collaboration with Keystone Symposia

Background:
The Michelson Medical Research Foundation was founded by Dr. Gary K. Michelson in 1995. The foundation accelerates solutions to global health challenges by fostering high-risk, high-reward approaches through convergent collaboration among engineers, scientists, and physicians.

Recent Recipients (2022-2025):

• 2025: Dr. Omar Abudayyeh (Brigham and Women's Hospital), Dr. Caleb Lareau (Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center), Dr. Yuzhong Liu (Scripps Research)
• 2022: Dr. Jenna Guthmiller (University of Colorado), Dr. Brittany Hartwell (University of Minnesota), Romain Guyon (University of Oxford), Dr. Nicholas Wu (University of Illinois), Dr. Rong Ma (Emory University), Dr. Camila Consiglio (Karolinska Institutet), Dr. Michael Birnbaum (MIT), Dr. Danika Hill (Monash University)