Following the alteration to the publishing schedule for Research Weekly during the summer semester, the Office of Research Development would like to remind all research faculty and students that funding opportunities will continue to be added to the Funding Connection database each week. 

The featured funding opportunities will also be updated weekly and included in the Research Weekly publications.   

Please contact Mary Lou Marino (mlmarino@ksu.edu) if you have any questions or need help locating funding opportunities.  

During the summer semester, Research Weekly will only be published twice per month — on the second and fourth Wednesday of the month. Normal weekly publication will resume at the beginning of the fall semester. 

Please join us at the Food as Medicine Research Summit taking place on Friday, May 30th at the K-State Olathe Campus from 10 a.m.-2 p.m.

This summit is designed for all K-State faculty who are currently participating in or focusing their research within areas connected to the burgeoning field of food as medicine. This will be a dynamic opportunity to come together with colleagues from across disciplines to identify existing research strengths within K-State and foster new interdisciplinary collaborations in this exciting area.

Please RSVP and save this date! More information regarding the agenda will be forthcoming. We look forward to a productive and insightful summit. 

The National Science Foundation’s Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) and the EPSCoR Research Infrastructure Improvement-Focused EPSCoR Collaborations (RII-FEC, formerly EPSCoR Track 2) funding opportunities are both limited submission programs, restricting the number of proposals that K-State can submit to each program. So that the Office of Research Development (ORD) can make sure that our institution does not go over the number of allowed submissions, ORD requires that you notify (a working title, team list, short synopsis) us via ordlimitedsubs@ksu.edu before a certain date if you are interested in either of these programs. If there are more interested groups than there are submission slots, our office holds an internal competition, requiring the submission of preproposals, to determine which groups can go forward. 

Because there is typically a large amount of interest in these programs, ORD has set the notification and potential preproposal due dates for them as shown in the table below.

The National Science Foundation is hosting a variety of office hours and webinars throughout 2025 covering a wide range of programs and topics. Links to register and more information for each series can be found below:

• Decision, Risk and Management Sciences Office Hour: April 16, 2025 - June 18, 2025
• CAREER Proposal Submission Logistics Webinar: June 25, 2025

The National Institutes of Health is adopting a new initiative to expand innovative, human-based science while reducing animal use in research. Developing and using cutting-edge alternative nonanimal research models aligns with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s recent initiative to reduce testing in animals. While traditional animal models continue to be vital to advancing scientific knowledge, using new and emerging technologies can offer unique strengths that, when utilized correctly or in combination, can expand the toolbox for researchers to answer previously difficult or unanswerable biomedical research questions.

To integrate innovative human-based science, the NIH intends to establish the Office of Research Innovation, Validation, and Application (ORIVA) within NIH’s Office of the Director. The new office will coordinate NIH-wide efforts to develop, validate, and scale the use of non-animal approaches across the agency’s biomedical research portfolio and serve as a hub for interagency coordination and regulatory translation for public health protection.

The full announcement can be found on NIH's website.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health announced a new, joint innovative research initiative that will serve as a key element in fulfilling U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s commitment to Make America Healthy Again. With diet-related chronic diseases continually rising, it is imperative that the FDA and NIH work in lockstep to invest in gold standard science, prioritize a better understanding of the root causes to end the diet-related chronic disease crisis and safeguard the health of America’s children.

Under the new Nutrition Regulatory Science Program, the FDA and NIH will implement and accelerate a comprehensive nutrition research agenda that will provide critical information to inform effective food and nutrition policy actions to help make Americans’ food and diets healthier. The initiative will aim to answer questions such as:

• How and why can ultra-processed foods harm people’s health?
• How might certain food additives affect metabolic health and possibly contribute to chronic disease?
• What is the role of maternal and infant dietary exposures on health outcomes across the lifespan, including autoimmune diseases?

The full announcement can be found on USDA's website.

Letter of Intent Deadline: May 28, 2025

Frontiers is seeking Letters of Intent (LOIs) for clinical science projects that will be able to utilize a newly formed Practice Based Research Network (PBRN). LOIs should describe innovative research projects to include in Element E: CTS Research Program of our UM1 renewal application. Information about the proposed PBRN goals and the LOI requirements are described below.

Consistent with the NCATS mission to catalyze translation of discoveries, the projects must focus on CTS rather than on basic discovery research. Project(s) should not only address a translational research question in a particular disease or intervention development / dissemination context but also provide generalizable CTS innovations or insights that can be applied to other translational research projects and thereby increase the overall efficiency or effectiveness of translation.

Additional information and applications are available here.

You bring the research; we’ll bring the spotlight! Science isn't just about discovery—it's about wonder.

We invite you to submit your scientific images to be showcased in a professional exhibit and auctioned online, with all proceeds supporting STEAM education in the Kansas City region. The BioNexus KC Science2Art program provides regional scientists the opportunity to transform complex scientific concepts into visually compelling artwork, fostering a deeper connection with the community. 

Why should you submit your research or data as art? 

• Selected images will be professionally curated and featured in our prestigious exhibition
• Connect with both scientific and artistic communities
• Support the next generation of STEAM talent

Submit your art today!



Submission deadline: June 7, 2025

NASA Research and Education Support Services (NRESS) is seeking persons willing to serve as peer reviewers for the Engagement Opportunities in NASA STEM 2025 (EONS-2025) Notice of Funding Opportunity: Appendix 3: MUREP Aeronautics Community Engagement Impact Research (ACEIR 2.0).

Information about the opportunity, proposal requirements and evaluation criteria can be found on the MUREP ACEIR 2.0 page in the NASA Solicitation and Proposal Integrated Review and Evaluation System (NSPIRES).

The peer review process is completed in two stages:

1.  The online review is tentatively scheduled for June 24 – July 8, 2025

Online reviewers will be expected to carefully read each proposal assigned and complete an online evaluation form. Each proposal should be reviewed on its own merit and should not be compared to others you have been assigned. Every effort will be made to assign no more than 5 proposals per online reviewer. Eligible non-civil servant online reviewers will receive $75 for each proposal review completed and submitted in NSPIRES prior to the close of the review period.

2.  The virtual panel review is tentatively scheduled for July 22–24, 2025

The panel will be comprised of a group of peers, discussing the strengths and weaknesses of each proposal. The duration of the panel might change depending on the number of proposals being reviewed, but for scheduling purposes, plan on a full-day commitment for all three days. One evaluation form will be completed by the group for each proposal, resulting in documents that will aid the Program Manager with selecting which proposal(s) should be recommended for funding. Eligible non-civil servant panelists will receive a $200/per day honorarium. 

If you are interested in serving as an online reviewer and/or virtual panelist, complete and submit the form found HERE, by May 30, 2025. 

Please note, your willingness to participate in this review does not guarantee your selection. Reviewers will be selected based on the subject matter of each proposal received. You will be contacted only if you are selected to participate.

Save the date! NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory will unveil its first imagery on June 23, 2025. Watch the livestream and be among the first to see how Rubin Observatory will soon capture the cosmos. 

Rubin Observatory is jointly funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science.

Named in honor of pioneering astronomer Vera C. Rubin, NSF-DOE Rubin Observatory will create a time-lapse view of the universe unlike any other by recording every visible change in the southern sky with unparalleled completeness, detail and speed. Rubin Observatory is expected to yield a staggering number of new discoveries: over 17 billion Milky Way stars, about 20 billion galaxies and around 10 million supernovas (over a thousand per night), plus millions of asteroids and untold numbers of comets and interstellar objects. 

The Forum on Cyber Resilience serves as an independent, trusted venue in which experts from industry, academia, and government can work collaboratively to explore emerging critical challenges related to the security, trustworthiness, and resilience of the nation's computing, communications systems, and critical infrastructures. Blending expertise in technology, policy, national security, and the law, the Forum convenes senior representatives and serves both as a readily available source of insight and expertise and as a body committed to anticipating and thinking about future trends. Forum activities inform stakeholders through convenings, dialogues, and published workshop summaries and through engagements with consensus study committees.

We invite you to submit suggestions for experts to participate in this activity. The call for experts closes on July 8, 2025.

Scientists design gene delivery systems for cells in the brain and spinal cord

NIH-funded breakthrough could enable targeted therapies for many neurological disorders. NIH

Thin plastic films could help refine oil cheaply—and with less pollution

Filters like those used in desalination plants hold promise of separating gasoline components from crude oil. Science

Gauging biological age to predict future health

Scientists developed a collection of eight metrics that reflect different aspects of a person’s health and biological age. NIH

NIH researchers develop biomarker score for predicting diets high in ultra-processed foods

Poly-metabolite scores could reduce reliance on self-reported dietary data in large population studies. NIH

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