Leveraging Innovations From Evolution (LIFE)
National Science Foundation
Who can apply
US-based academic institutions. Non-profit research organizations. Qualified researchers (typically requires US citizenship or permanent residency)
About this opportunity
Biological systems provide a vast and largely untapped source of solutions to recurring challenges across environments and scales. Advances in computing and genomics have revolutionized biological systematics, leading to unprecedented understanding of how such adaptations have evolved. However, mechanistic insights from molecular biology are needed to enable translation of evolutionary innovation into viable biotech applications. The LIFE program seeks to expand this frontier by encouraging bold, integrative research that unites comparative and evolutionary perspectives with molecular and developmental approaches to reveal how distinct mechanisms and pathways generate functional solutions across diverse organisms. Emerging biotechnology and AI are transforming how biological discovery occu...