The Huck is proud to support a portfolio of trailblazing seed funding initiatives. The Huck Innovative and Transformational Seed (HITS) Fund provides backing for risky but potentially revolutionary projects that are unlikely to receive funding from traditional sources. The Patricia and Steven Benkovic Research Initiative supports similar boldly innovative, high-risk proposals at the interface of chemistry and the life sciences. Our Inter-Institutional Partnerships for Diversifying Research (IPDR) program is focused on development and leveraging of strategic partnerships and alliances with Minority Serving Institutions, advancing research development capability as well as student and faculty training needed to support such research collaborations. Finally, our 48 Seed-Funded COVID-19 Projects rapidly mobilized resources to address the urgent challenges posed by the pandemic, supporting a comprehensive selection of responses across six core areas. The research supported by this initiative is still producing new science about infectious diseases and strategies to combat their spread and effects.
Seed Funding
Driving breakthroughs and creating new, impactful collaborations with interdisciplinary life sciences seed funding
News
Three projects receive Huck Innovative and Transformational Seed Fund grants
Three potentially high-impact, high-risk research projects have been selected to receive seed funding for the latest round of the Huck Innovative and Transformational Seed (HITS) Fund initiative.
Genomic pioneers collaborate to access the inaccessible
A new experimental method allows researchers to dissect how certain proteins, called pioneer factors, can bind to selective regions of the genome that are inaccessible to other DNA binding proteins.
Research teams receive $1.1 million to study microbiomes in agriculture
Two Penn State-led research teams have received funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture for projects investigating the ways microbiomes — the microorganisms in a particular environment, such as in soil or a living organism — can affect disease dynamics in agriculture.
News
Three projects receive Huck Innovative and Transformational Seed Fund grants
Three potentially high-impact, high-risk research projects have been selected to receive seed funding for the latest round of the Huck Innovative and Transformational Seed (HITS) Fund initiative.
Genomic pioneers collaborate to access the inaccessible
A new experimental method allows researchers to dissect how certain proteins, called pioneer factors, can bind to selective regions of the genome that are inaccessible to other DNA binding proteins.
Research teams receive $1.1 million to study microbiomes in agriculture
Two Penn State-led research teams have received funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture for projects investigating the ways microbiomes — the microorganisms in a particular environment, such as in soil or a living organism — can affect disease dynamics in agriculture.
Penn State awards five new seed grants to support inter-institutional research
Five new research collaborations between Penn State and minority-serving institutions selected to receive seed funding via the Inter-Institutional Partnerships for Diversifying Research program.