In the most competitive awards, the NIH Director’s Pioneer Awards and the NIH Director’s Transformative Research Awards, our Allen Distinguished Investigators and Allen Discovery Center leaders comprised an amazing 25% and 38% of the awards, respectively. In the broader category of NIH Early Independence Awards, an Allen Distinguished Investigator received one of 11 total national awards.

This notably extensive presence of Frontiers Group awardees among this groundbreaking national cohort demonstrates the successful curation of frontier talents among the researchers funded by The Paul G. Allen Frontiers Group. Private philanthropic funding is invaluable in uncovering this kind of pioneering talent and promoting the frontier thinking needed to create a healthy future.

The awardees are:

NIH Director’s Pioneer Award

• Feng Zhang, Ph.D., Allen Distinguished Investigator
• Jeffrey Macklis, M.D., D.HST., Allen Distinguished Investigator
• Alex Schier, Ph.D., team member of Allen Discovery Center at UW Medicine

NIH Director’s Transformative Research Award

• Ed Boyden, Ph.D., Allen Distinguished Investigator
• Long Cai, Ph.D., Allen Distinguished Investigator
• Michael Elowitz, Ph.D., Allen Distinguished Investigator

NIH Director’s Early Independence Award

• Fei Chen, Ph.D., Allen Distinguished Investigator

To learn more about all the awardees and the NIH High-Risk, High-Reward program, read their press release.