Depending on the field and stage of your research, often familiar funding sources do not fit the product development process. At UCSF, there are many non-traditional funding sources available that are designed to specifically support this process with access to customized industrial expertise and mentoring as well as non-dilutive seed funding.
Note that the funding opportunities on this page exclusively fund research in a UCSF academic lab; Other funding sources are available after a start-up has been incorporated.
1. Catalyst Program
The Catalyst Program provides customized industrial mentorship and funding for UCSF research projects at the early stages of development into a commercial product. Catalyst focuses on five areas:
- Therapeutics - Approaches to create and develop small molecules, biological drugs, cell and gene therapy, as well as other modalities
- Diagnostics - Approaches to create and develop assays for biomarkers of disease and precision medicine therapeutic approaches
- Medical Devices - Development of medical devices to address patient need
- Digital Health - Using digital technology to support the needs of patients
- Biotools - Approaches to create biological platforms for scientists
Once a year, Catalyst requests proposals from the UCSF community. Awardees receive funding and mentoring from industry experts to refine their ideas. The program continues to support the development of Catalyst projects, which may include additional funding, help with strategic industry partnering, and more.
Catalyst has over 80 active industry advisors who work with innovators to develop their research toward products for patient benefit.
Contact for more information:
Charles Hart, PhD
Director
[email protected]
2. UC Drug Discovery Consortium
The University of California Drug Discovery Consortium, (UC DDC) strives to leverage the biomedical research and commercialization strengths of the UC system to accelerate the development of life-saving therapies. The UC DDC is a cross-campus initiative created amongst seven University of California campus medical centers, with future goals to expand to all UC Campuses. Together, leaders from these institutes work to promote drug development by providing expertise in drug discovery education and training to UC researchers, promote access to related core facilities throughout the UC system for researchers and partners, and build relationships between industry partners and researchers for enhanced project translation.
Contact for more information:
Jason Gestwicki, PhD
Executive Committee Member & San Francisco Site Lead
[email protected]
3. Ono Pharma Breakthrough Science Initiative Awards Program in the United States and Canada in 2025
Per the guidelines, each institution, including UCSF, may nominate up to two principal investigators (PIs) to register for this opportunity.
As an internal UCSF deadline, please submit the completed document (Word version converted to PDF format) to Dr. Peter Kotsonis at [email protected] by Friday, February 7, 2025. Following the review, two UCSF PIs will be selected to proceed with submission of the LOI to Ono by the February 14, 2025 deadline.
Listed below is the Ono Pharma Foundation announcement as well as an attached document that provides overview and funding opportunity announcement information.
announces the
Ono Pharma Breakthrough Science Initiative Awards Program in the United States and Canada in 2025
Ono Pharma Foundation announces the start of the ninth year of the annual Breakthrough Science Initiative Awards Program (Ono Initiative) in the United States and Canada. Proposals from Principal Investigators will be considered for high-risk and high-reward science research projects which have the potential to lead to science discoveries/solutions and, based on further research, to breakthrough treatments for patients. Applications will be considered from Principal Investigators nominated by 66 Universities and Research Institutes in the Chemical Biology field for laboratory investigation to be carried out in the United States and Canada.
Target research of Chemical Biology is not specified by the Ono Initiative. For 2025, subjects of interest include but are not limited to:
- Modulating interactome and cell/tissue crosstalk
- Manipulating biomolecular condensates and protein quality control systems
- Deep understanding and emerging applications of chemical glycobiology
- New concepts of drug delivery and localization to tissue/cell/organelle
- Understanding and leveraging allostery in biology
We continue to welcome projects outside of these subjects.
The Awards
Awards will provide $900,000 over three years for research and will provide up to 15% in additional funding to cover institutional indirect costs.
Three Awards are planned for the ninth year (2025). Institutions are allowed to nominate up to two researchers.
For further details regarding this opportunity, please contact Peter Kotsonis, PhD at:
4. Arc Institute Innovation Investigator Program
This year the focus areas are Immunology, Neurobiology, and Machine Learning.
Innovation Investigators receive $1,000,000 direct costs in unrestricted funding from the Arc Institute over 5 years and gain access to Arc resources and facilities, including the opportunity to collaborate with Technology Centers and to use Arc scientific core facilities, while maintaining their UCSF lab and position at their home university.
To Apply:
· This is an open RFP (UCSF may submit an unlimited number of applications).
· Please email [email protected] to announce your intention to apply, then follow application instructions in RFP, conferring with your Grants Officer as needed. Applicants should consult the UCSF Office of Sponsored Research to ensure compliance with internal policies before submitting.
· If awarded, please contact [email protected].
· Application deadline is March 15, 2025.
For more information and to review complete application instructions and eligibility requirements, please visit
5. The Laboratory for Genomics Research (LGR) Innovation Awards Program
This Program aims to support early-stage technology development projects that could mature into future UC-LGR collaborative projects. Innovation Awards are one-year research grants to support labs at the UCSF and UC Berkeley campuses with an interest in developing highly innovative ideas into early proofs of concept across the field of functional genomics and CRISPR/Cas-based tool development. The goal for these awards is to support the development of novel platform technologies, disease-related model systems, and the application of these to functional genomics screens.
The award is open to Faculty or faculty-equivalent status with primary appointments at UC San Francisco and UC Berkeley. The LGR submission deadline is February 28, 2025.
More information related to award details, research topics of interest, and application instructions can be found at: