Fact Sheet – Research Opportunities in Microbial Biology
(pdf)
NSF PROGRAMS RELEVANT
TO MICROBIAL SCIENCES
Microbial Genome
Sequencing Program (collaboration with USDA, CSREES) – supports sequencing and annotation
of microbial genomes, including viruses, bacteria, archea, fungi, and protists.
Microbial
Observatories and Microbial Interactions and Processes -- supports integrative studies
that explore novel microorganisms, their interactions in consortia and
communities, and aspects of their physiology, biochemistry and genomics in
relationship to the processes that they carry out in the environment. (The Microbial Observatories component is a
collaboration with USDA, CSREES)
Programs in the Biological
Sciences Directorate (BIO) that Include Microbial Components (listed by
Division)
Division
of Molecular and Cellular Biosciences (MCB)
NOTE: The Division of Molecular and Cellular Biosciences currently uses a
cross-cluster panel to evaluate proposals on Prokaryotic Molecular and Cellular
Biology topics.
Biomolecular
Systems Cluster
- includes the scientific themes of molecular biochemistry (research on the
structure and function of macromolecules), molecular biophysics (the assembly,
atomic structure and 3-D architecture of nucleic acids, proteins, and other
biological macromolecules), and metabolic biochemistry (including cellular physiology,
enzymology and biochemistry).
Genes
and Genome Systems Cluster – includes the scientific themes
of gene expression (research
on the mechanisms and regulation of transcription, RNA processing and
translation), eukaryotic, prokaryotic and viral genetic mechanisms (including
nucleic acid replication recombination and repair) and evolution of genes,
genomes and genetic mechanisms.
Cellular
Systems Cluster
- includes the scientific themes of cell organization (research on cell
division and cell cycles, DNA segregation, motility, endospore formation,
secretion, protein targeting and interactions), and signal
transduction/cellular regulation (cell-cell
communication, quorum sensing, biofilm assembly, two component systems,
chemosensing, cell differentiation and signaling).
Behavioral
Systems Cluster - focuses on the development, function, mechanisms, and evolution of
behavior, biological rhythms, and interactions between organisms including
animals, plants, and microbes. This area supports research on social and
reproductive behavior; behavioral ecology and physiology; physiological
responses, chemical communication, and studies of plant interactions with other
organisms.
Developmental
Systems Cluster - focuses on the nature, control, and evolution of those processes that
comprise the life cycle of organisms. This area includes research on the
mechanisms of gametogenesis, fertilization, embryogenesis, differentiation,
pattern formation, and morphogenesis.
Environmental
and Structural Systems Cluster- focuses on the function and evolution of organisms in
their physiochemical and biotic environments. Included are studies of evolutionary
aspects of physiology, physiological ecology, and functional morphology.
Functional
and Regulatory Systems Cluster - focuses on fundamental physiological mechanisms and how
they have evolved, with emphasis on organisms as integrated systems. This
area includes comparative physiology at the genetic, genomic, cellular, tissue,
organ, system, and organismal levels of organization.
Division
of Environmental Biology (DEB)
Systematic
Biology and Biodiversity Inventories Cluster (SBBI) – supports the general science of systematics,
whose three main missions are: to discover, describe, and inventory global
species diversity; to analyze and synthesize the information derived from this
global discovery effort into predictive classification systems that reflect the
history of life; and to organize the information derived from this global
program in efficiently retrievable forms that best meet the needs of science
and society;
Planetary Biodiversity Inventory (PBI) To
accelerate the discovery and study of the world’s biodiversity, proposals are
invited from teams of investigators to conduct a worldwide, species-level
systematic inventory of a major group of organisms. Each project should conduct
fieldwork necessary to fill gaps in existing collections, produce descriptions,
taxonomic revisions, web-searchable databases, and interactive keys (or other
automated identification tools) for all new and known species in the targeted
group, analyze their phylogenetic relationships, and establish predictive
classifications for the group. Proposals may target any particular group of
organisms, from terrestrial, fresh-water, or marine habitats, at any feasible
level in the taxonomic hierarchy, but must be global in scope.
Partnerships for Enhancing Expertise in Taxonomy
(PEET) seeks to enhance taxonomic research
and help prepare future generations of experts. Through its Special Biennial
Competition in Systematic Biology, NSF will support competitively reviewed
projects that target groups of poorly known organisms for modern monographic
research. Projects must train new taxonomists (two per project minimally) and
must translate current expertise into electronic databases and other products
with broad accessibility to the scientific community.
Population
and Evolutionary Processes Cluster (PEP) – supports research that focuses on
population properties that lead to variation within and among populations.
Approaches include empirical and theoretical studies of microevolution,
organismal adaptation, geographical differentiation, natural hybridization and
speciation, as well as processes that lead to macroevolutionary patterns of
trait evolution;
Ecological
Biology Cluster (EB) – supports studies of community ecology and population
interactions at diverse spatial and temporal scales. These include (1)
dynamics and processes within particular habitats; (2) food-web structure; (3)
landscape patterns and processes; (4) paleoecology; (5) biotic interactions,
including mutualism, competition, predation, and parasitism; (6) mechanisms of
coexistence and community assembly, (7) co-evolution, and (8) chemical ecology;
Ecosystem
Science Cluster (ES) – supports investigations of
whole-system ecological processes and relationships in ecosystems across a
diversity of spatial and temporal scales. Proposals may focus on areas
such as: biogeochemistry; decomposition of organic matter; belowground nutrient
cycling and energy flow; primary productivity; radiatively active gas flux;
element budgets on watershed, regional, continental, or global scales;
relationships between diversity and ecosystem function; ecosystem services; and
landscape dynamics.
Doctoral
Dissertation Improvement Grants in the Directorate for Biological Sciences - are available in the Divisions of
Integrative Organismal Biology and The Division of Environmental Biology and
provide partial support for doctoral dissertation research to improve the
overall quality of the research, to allow doctoral candidates to conduct
research in specialized facilities or field settings away from the home campus,
and to provide opportunities for greater diversity in collecting and creativity
in analyzing data than would otherwise be possible using only locally available
resources.
Assembling
the Tree of Life (ATOL) – a 10 to
15-year effort to collect and analyze data that will resolve phylogenetic
relationships for all known species, including microbes.
Ecology
of Infectious Disease(EID) (in collaboration with NIH)– special
competition that supports predictive-oriented research on the ecology of
infection and transmission of pathogens in relationship to anthropogenic
changes.
Frontiers in
Integrative Biological Research (FIBR) – special competition for large grants to support
multi-disciplinary teams of scientists bringing their diverse expertise
together to cohesively address major biological questions.
Research
Coordination Networks (RCN) – supports coordination activities among a community of
researchers working on a common theme.
Some themes have been microbial, e.g. the phylogeny of the fungi.
Research
Initiation Grants (RIG) and Career Advancement Awards (CAA) to Broaden
Participation in the Biological Sciences – the two funding opportunities under
this solicitation share the goal of broadening the participation of scientists
from groups underrepresented in the biological sciences in the U.S. These
activities seek to promote the development and retention of scientists from
underrepresented groups and to increase the numbers of such individuals that
serve as role models for the scientific workforce of the future.
Division
of Biological Infrastructure (DBI)
Human
Resources Cluster – support includes research experiences for undergraduates (sites),
undergraduate mentoring in environmental biology, cross-disciplinary research
at undergraduate institutions, and, in selected disciplines, postdoctoral
research fellowships;
Research
Resources Cluster – includes support for living stocks collections
(e.g., operation or improvement of microbial culture collections), biological
databases and informatics (including development and curation of various types
of microbial-relevant databases) and infrastructure support for field stations
and marine labs.
Undergraduate Mentoring in Environmental Biology
(UMEB)-- is designed to enable institutions
to create programs that will encourage undergraduate students, especially those
from under-represented groups, to pursue a career in environmental biology. The
UMEB Program supports projects that provide year-round support for
undergraduate students to gain research experience in environmental biology.
Faculty Early
Career Development Program (CAREER) – recognizes and supports the early career-development
activities of those teacher-scholars who are most likely to become the academic
leaders of the 21st century; CAREER proposals are based on a combined research
and education plan. In BIO CAREER
proposals are reviewed in the same panels as research proposals.
Integrative
Graduate Education and Research Traineeship Program (IGERT) – support for cross-disciplinary
training programs based on a scientific theme.
IGERT proposals based on microbial themes are welcome.
Research
Experiences for Undergraduates Sites (REU Sites) –supports undergraduate research
participation on projects for a number of students at a particular institution
or institutional consortium. Proposals
for REU sites involving microbial biology are welcome.
Biochemical
Engineering and Biotechnology – supports research in fermentation and enzyme technology,
metabolic pathway engineering, biosensor development, bioreactor design and
bioprocess optimization, bioseparation and purification processes;
Biomedical
Engineering and Research to Aid Persons with Disabilities (BME/RAPD) - focuses on high impact
transforming technologies for deriving information from cells, tissues, organs,
and organ systems, extraction of useful information from complex biomedical
signals, new approaches to the design of structures and materials for eventual
medical use, and new methods of controlling living systems;
Environmental
Engineering and Technology – supports studies of the roles of microorganisms in
wastewater treatment, groundwater restoration, soil remediation and landfill
processes; microbial-induced corrosion, microbial
transformations of hazardous materials, disinfection, and modeling of
microbial decomposition systems;
Interagency
Opportunities in Metabolic Engineering – (with 7 other federal agencies) supports the
targeted and purposeful alteration of metabolic pathways found in an organism in
order to better understand and utilize cellular pathways for chemical
transformation, energy transduction and biomolecular assembly.
Division of Ocean Sciences (OCE)
Biological
Oceanography – supports research in marine ecology, including ecosystem
and biogeochemical processes, community and population ecology, behavioral,
reproductive and life-history ecology, physiological and chemical ecology,
molecular, cellular and biochemical studies and evolutionary ecology;
Chemical
Oceanography – supports work on microbial processes, which are implicated
in a large fraction of the program’s research particularly in the areas of (a)
material transfers, transformations, and fluxes at the air-sea, land-sea, and
seafloor interfaces, and (b) marine biogeochemical processes, including those
exerting major impacts on global-scale processes;
Marine Geology and
Geophysics (MGG) - supports research on processes that occur on and below the seafloor and
at the water/sediment/rock interface, including the interaction of microbes
with solid substrates such as sediments, rocks and minerals, and precipitates;
Physical
Oceanography - supports research in cooperation with the Biological and Chemical Oceanography programs that pertain to
microbial assemblages and their ambient physical environment, including the way
the ocean's physical structure interacts with the biological and chemical
processes within it, and with interactions between the ocean and the
atmosphere, solid earth and ice that surround it;
Ocean Drilling
Program (OD) supports international exploration of Earth's crust beneath the
ocean revealing the composition, structure, and history of the submerged
portion of Earth's surface, including the biological assemblages living in the
deep subsurface;
Ocean Technology
and Interdisciplinary Coordination (OTIC) - Instrument Development includes support for
instrumentation development to enhance research on marine microbes;
Cooperative
Activities in Environmental Research between the National Science Foundation
and the European Commission: Ecology and Oceanography of Harmful Algae - supports research on the
biological, ecological, geochemical and physical processes that underlie the
phenomenon of bloom formation in toxic and noxious algae. This is a special focused program,
cooperative with a number of other federal agencies;
Ridge
2000 – a
special focus research program that supports integrated geological and
biological studies of the Earth-encircling mid-ocean ridge system, including
the origin and evolution of microbial life forms linked to, and perhaps an
inevitable consequence of, the flow of energy and material from Earth's deep
mantle, through the volcanic and hydrothermal systems of the oceanic crust, to
the deep ocean. This program is funded
cooperatively by Marine Geology and Geophysics and Biological Oceanography;
Ecology
of Infectious Diseases – special competition that supports predictive-oriented
research on the ecology of infection and transmission of pathogens in
relationship to anthropogenic changes.
This competition is led by the BIO Directorate;
Development
of Technologies for Coastal Observing Systems and the Study of Benthic Boundary
Layer Processes - this is a special focus research
program that supports integrated research on physical and meteorological processes
that promote high biological productivity, active sedimentary processes,
dynamic chemical transformations and intense air-sea interactions, including
those involving microbes.
Programs support fundamental
research in the composition, abundance, and effects (cloud physics,
precipitation chemistry, human health, etc.) of microbes in the atmosphere,
including transport, survival, and growth, and existence of microbial
communities in the atmosphere.
Hydrologic
Sciences -
focuses on terrestrial processes that comprise the hydrologic cycle including
evapotranspiration, precipitation, infiltration, overland and streamflow,
subsurface percolation and the transport of solutes, nutrients, and
particles by these fluxes. This program encourages studies probing
the spatial and temporal heterogeneity of water and chemical fluxes and
storages from local to global scales – including residence times,
interfacial fluxes, pathways among system compartments, and research in
geolimnology and hydrologic impacts on microbial communities. HS also
supports research in aqueous geochemistry directly connected to hydrologic
processes and the physical, chemical, and biological processes taking
place as water bodies change;
Sedimentary
Geology and Paleobiology - supports studies of: (1) life and ecology in past
geologic time based on fossil plants, animals, and microbes; (2) stratified
rocks and interpretation of the historical information they contain; (3) the
science of dating and measuring the time sequence of events of the Earth’s
past; and (4) the production, transport and deposition of physical and chemical
sediments. SGP especially encourages integrative studies at the national
and international levels that seek to link subdisciplines, such as
paleoclimatology, paleobiogeography, and paleoenvironmental and paleoecologic
reconstructions.
Opportunities for
Enhancing Diversity in the Geosciences (OEDG) - supports activities that will
increase the number of members of underrepresented groups that: i) are involved
in formal pre-college geoscience education programs; ii) pursue bachelor,
master and doctoral degrees in the geosciences; iii) enter geoscience careers;
and iv) participate in formal geoscience education programs
Antarctic
Biology and Medicine (ABM) – supports research on molecular and cellular processes as
well as on physiology and ecology of Antarctic microorganisms and microbial
roles in Antarctic ecosystems;
Arctic
Natural Sciences (ANS) - supports projects that emphasize
understanding of the adaptation of organisms to the arctic environment;
ecology; microbiology; ecosystem structure and processes; and the biological
consequences of ultraviolet radiation. Any aspects of these relating to
microbiology are appropriate and ANS currently supports a wide array of
microbial research;.
Arctic
System Sciences (ARCSS) - supports interdisciplinary research projects that examine the arctic
system interaction with total Earth system and contribute to or are influenced
by global change. This includes several
projects that study processes mediated by microbes.
International
Polar Year (IPY) - The international community of polar researchers and funding agents
has begun planning for an International Polar Year (IPY) to take place March
2007-March 2009 (see http://dels.nas.edu/us-ipy
and http://www.ipy.org/). Proposals to
perform activities related to planning or execution of the IPY may be submitted
to this program solicitation and should identify their relevance to IPY
activities. The proposed activities should be consistent with program goals
described in this solicitation.
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updated 01/24/06