Solving the mysteries of bioscience
Foundational Science Fuels Breakthroughs
Inspiring Next-Generation Scientists
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The Allen Distinguished Investigator program supports early-stage research with the potential to reinvent entire fields.
With grants between $1 million and $1.5 million to individuals and scientific teams, these researchers receive enough funding to produce momentum in their respective fields.
Allen Distinguished Investigators are passionate thought leaders, explorers, and innovators who seek world-changing breakthroughs. Their ideas are transformative and their scientific insights are game-changing. They share a pioneering spirit, the ability to imagine possible futures of science, and the ability to create new ways of thinking to share with the world.
Talent is everywhere. Allen Distinguished Investigators may come from small universities or large institutions, cities, or towns across the world. We explore the landscape of bioscience to identify distinguished leaders who will make a difference.
View past awardees
2024 Cohorts
Membrane Biophysics
Researchers in this cohort will focus on cellular membranes that separate cell contents from the surrounding environment, allow cells to change shape, exchange materials, and respond to their environment. Despite having been implicated in numerous human diseases, little is known about the principles governing cell membrane biology and biophysics. This cohort will expand the frontiers of our understanding of fundamental aspects of cell membrane form, function, and dynamics using innovative technologies and analytical frameworks, with important implications for basic science and human health.
Projects:
Organelle Communication
Researchers in this cohort will explore a thrilling frontier in cell biology emerging from the discovery that organelles (cellular compartments) can directly connect to each other to exchange materials and information, forming complex and dynamic networks. Much of how these interactions occur remains unknown due to the profound challenges of observing rapid events on a nanometer scale. This cohort will pioneer new tools to directly observe and model the organelle ‘interactome’ across time, space, and cell type. Their findings will expand our understanding of core biological principles, with powerful implications for fields ranging from regenerative medicine to virology.
2023 Cohorts
Extracellular Vesicles
Extracellular vesicles hold huge promise as a means of therapeutic delivery; however, their diversity and a lack of understanding of their basic biology are hindering progress. This cohort seeks to elucidate fundamental principles of the biology of extracellular vesicles in a variety of contexts, including the development of technologies to better visualize and track them in living organisms.
Sex Hormones
Researchers in this cohort are uncovering the cellular and molecular actions of sex hormones outside of reproduction and reproduction-related development. Their work addresses a key need to deepen our understanding of how sex hormones affect many of biological processes. These new discoveries have the potential to impact human health, including diagnostics and treatment.
2022 Cohorts
Nutrient Sensing
Researchers in this cohort are developing new technologies to measure or visualize nutrient levels within cells. Their work addresses a key need in the field, namely the ability to capture detailed information about metabolites, chemical compounds, and other nutrients in live individual cells. These new techniques could propel understanding of the basic biology of cells as well as how metabolism or nutrition processing goes wrong in diseases like diabetes or malnutrition.
Protein Lifespan
Proteins are the building blocks of life — nearly all cellular structures and processes are built and carried out by proteins. Do our proteins age like our bodies age? While scientists have discovered how cells turn over old proteins to create new forms, it’s not clear how lifespan varies among different kinds of proteins, what it means to have “old” proteins, or how the cellular environment could affect protein aging. Researchers in this cohort are building new technologies and designing experiments to address important questions around protein lifespan and aging.
2021 Cohorts
Neural Circuit Design
Researchers in the Neural Circuit Design cohort are studying evolutionary principles in the brain circuits that control movement, focusing on animals and systems that are not traditionally studied in the laboratory. Their studies will flesh out a more complete picture of the diversity of nervous systems and motor neural circuits in the animal kingdom, as well as pinpointing common and conserved principles of motion and motor control.
Micropeptides
Our genomes contain vast amounts of DNA that remain poorly understood. A recent arrival on the scene of genomic “dark matter”: micropeptides, tiny proteins coded by tiny genes that had long escaped notice due to their size but that appear to be present in large numbers in our genome and that of every other living thing. These small molecules likely play roles in many different biological processes; scientists are recently uncovering their influence in several different diseases and in the function of the immune system. Scientists in the Micropeptides cohort are shedding new light on how micropeptides influence immunology, in health and in disease.
The field of synthetic biology has made incredible advances in recent years, and yet the complexity of mammalian biology presents an additional challenge for scientists aiming to engineer tissue or organoids in the lab. The investigators in the Mammalian Synthetic Development cohort are working to cross many of the barriers to mammalian synthetic biology, including several approaches to improve the development and engineering of organoids, lab-grown mini-organs typically derived from human stem cells. Their work spans many parts of the human body, including the liver, lungs, brain, and connective tissues.
The Allen Distinguished Investigator program was launched in 2010 by the late philanthropist Paul G. Allen to back creative, early-stage research projects in biology and medical research that would not otherwise be supported by traditional research funding programs. A total of 130 Allen Distinguished Investigators have been appointed during the past 12 years. Each award spans three years of research funding.
Cell Nucleus Cohort
In vivo analysis of nuclear mechanics and mechanotransduction
Nuclear-endoplasmic reticulum communication during normal remodeling and pathological alteration of these organelles
New models for nuclear homeostasis: integrating force, flow and pressure
Immunometabolism Cohort
Decoding the 3D immuno-metabolic circuitry
Distinct immune-metabolic niches in inflammatory bowel disease
Defining infection-induced metabolic reprogramming: from cells to systems
Bioluminescent tools for noninvasive, real-time imaging of immunometabolism
2019 Expansion Cohort
Early manifestations of subcellular defects in neurodegenerative diseases
Tracking proteome dynamics in single cells
Spatial Single-Cell Technologies Cohort
Spatially-resolved proteomic mapping of complex tissues at the single cell level
Quantitative, spatially-resolved analysis of tissue metabolism
Disease Models Cohort
Reading and writing cell histories: New genomic technologies to unlock cell programming
Simulating the Gut-Brain Axis using iPSC and Organ-Chip Technology: a New Model of Parkinson’s Disease
Human iPSC Models of Metabolic and Digestive Diseases
2018 Curated ADI Cohort
Unmasking and Exploiting Astrocyte Biology
Reverse engineering of biological circuits underlying aging and development
Nuclear Biophysics Cohort
Nuclear Organization Through Phase Separation: Mechanisms, Functions and Disease
Lymphoma Cohort
Developing in situ programming of CAR T-cells for clinical use in lymphoma patients
Defining Vulnerabilities of MRD
The microenvironment architecture and ecosystem of Hodgkin lymphoma
Neuroimmune Cohort
Brain vasculature at the neuro-immune interface
Deciphering peripheral neuroimmune architecture by intercellular labelling
Curated 2017 ADI Cohort
Universal Epigenetic Aging Clock
Real Time Evolution and Gene Flows
AHA ADI Cohort
Information Storage and Retrieval in the Cardiac Extracellular Matrix
Forward and reverse degradomics of cardiovascular extracellular matrix
Epigenetics Cohort
Multi-modal Visualization of the Dynamic Epigenome
Systematic mapping of epigenetic marks to the 3D architecture of the human genome in single cells.
Epigenome Editing Technologies for Cell Programming
Curated ADI Cohort
How developmental noise in neural circuit development determines the unique behavior of individuals
Synthetic biology approaches to antimicrobial resistance
Anti-viral Machinery and Cell Editing Platforms
Biological Innovation and Active Genetics
Neuronal Maturation Cohort
“Flight Data” Recorder, Checkpoint Timing, Hodaptics, and Growth Cone Independence
Genome-Scale Technologies for Reverse-Engineering Transcriptional Logics Underlying Cell Fate Specification
Identifying and Inducing Hallmarks of Maturity in Human Neurons
Transcriptomic and epigenetic acceleration of neuronal maturation and aging
Matching Regional Diversity with Function: Unique Astrocyte Signals Mature Regionally Matched Neurons
Using miRNAs to Accelerate in vitro Circuit Maturation in 3D Neural Structures from ESCs
Alzheimer’s Cohort
Mapping glymphatic pathway function in the human brain: Detecting glio-vascular changes that slow amyloid β clearance from the aging brain
Resolving white matter dysfunction in Alzheimer’s disease with novel biosensors
Systematic elucidation of cellular networks controlling proteinopathy in Alzheimer’s disease
Human age-equivalent directly induced neurons to study functional phenotypes of Alzheimer’s disease.
Dysregulation of pH dynamics in Alzheimer Disease Pathogenesis
Lineage Barcode Cohort
Tracking cell fate decisions in single cells
Protein-Based Barcodes for Mapping B Cell Differentiation at High Resolution
Cell lineage Defined by Mitotic Recombination
Cell Decision Making and Modeling Cohort
Crowd Computing with Bacteria: Balancing Phenotypic Diversity and Coordinated Behavior
Microbial Studies of Cellular Decision-Making: Game Theory and the Evolutionary Origins of Cooperation
Cell-Size Control and Its Evolution at the Single-Cell Level
Untangling the Wires: an Integrated Framework for Probing Signal Encoding and Decoding in Cellular Circuits
Towards Whole-Cell Models of Higher Organisms
Human Accelerated Regions Cohort
Genetic Mutation of HARs and Human Neurocognition
Analysis of Positively Selected Genetic Changes Unique to Modern Humans
Molecular and Genetic Analysis of Human Brain Evolution
UW Brain-Computer Spinal Interface Cohort
Development of a Brain-Computer-Spinal Interface
Botswana-Lymphoma Cohort
Redefining Lymphoma Characterization, Assessment, and Development of Protocols for Treatment
Genetic Identification of Attack Neurons in the Mouse
Evaluating Connectomes Using Measures of Complexity and Synergy
Sequencing the Connectome
Massively-Parallel, Three-Dimensional, Circuitwide Recording of Neural Activity
Ethomics: A Technology-Driven Approach to Study the Genetic and Neural Basis of Behavior
Reprogramming Cells with Plant-Derived Signaling Pathways
Massively Parallel Brain Imaging in Mouse Models of Human Brain Disease
