University of Chicago Big Ideas Generator

BIG Winners Announced - Winter 2015!

BIG Winners Announced - Winter 2015!

University of Chicago Big Ideas

posted 04 / 20 / 15

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BIG Vision ($100K): BIG Vision winners from Winter 2015 include a new collaboration between a neuroscientist Sara Szuchet and chemists Ka Yee Lee and Gregory Voth to study a novel theory for myelin sheath formation mechanism – a discovery that will upend a 50 year old paradigm in neuroscience.

Two projects will take bold steps in integrating massive patterns of neural activity from various brain sites in guiding complex behavior - a major improvement over the current framework of studying isolated loci of brain activity and modeling their links to behavior. Neuroscientist David Freedman will create an integrated framework for analyzing brain activity between anatomically connected areas of the brain. Nicho Hatsopolous (Organismal Biology and Anatomy) will explore a novel tool – optical imaging – to study real-time interplay between large-scale spatiotemporal patterns of neural activity and unconstrained complex behaviors in marmosets.

The final Vision recipients are Howard Shuman (Microbiology) and Linda Amaral-Zetler (Marine Biological Laboratory) - they put forth a novel fundamental model of pathogen emergence called “The Stolen Gene” model. This model argues that pathogens continuously acquire novel genes horizontally (from hosts) that are subsequently modified by selection to serve as virulence genes.

 

Besides funding ($100K), these projects will receive custom support from research strategists from Arete for the next two years to establish these projects as major research agendas.

 

BIG Seed: BIG Seed winners receive smaller grants ($15K) to explore or validate the scientific potential of nascent projects. Oleg Urminsky from Booth School of Business will advance a discovery that external rewards do not “crowd out” intrinsic motivation in the long term (challenging a long-standing finding in psychology). John Goldsmith (Linguistics) will develop a shared computational algorithm for different aspects of language learning (words, word-internal structure, and grammar). Leslie Kay (Psychology) will explore the role of higher order brain areas in shaping the analysis of sensory input.

 

BIG is dedicated to launching ambitious early-stage basic research projects for UChicago faculty.

 

~ Upcoming Events ~

Spring 2019 Funding Call

BIG is pleased to announce the Spring 2019 funding call! We welcome early-stage, ambitious research proposals in any field of scholarly inquiry at the University of Chicago.

Fall 2016 Workshops Funding Call

11 / 07   5:00 PM

This fall, BIG is offering funding for exploratory workshops

BIG is a Top 100 Finalist for the 2016 Innovation Awards!

10 / 06  12:00 AM

Vote for BIG in the 2016 Innovation Awards!

BIG in the news!

BIG is the Fall Issue of Medicine on the Midway

BIG is Funding Researchers' Moonshot Projects

11 / 16  12:00 AM

ChicagoInno talks to BIG about our experiment in early-stage science funding

BIG Fall Funding

11 / 16   5:00 PM

This fall, BIG will be offering three exciting funding opportunities!

BIG is a 50 on Fire Finalist!

Vote for the BIG Ideas Generator!

Voting for the 2015 People's Choice Award is now live  - click here and find us on page 10 under "Entrepreneurship"! As a Top 100 Finalist, BIG is in the running and eligible to receive this award, which is determined by popular vote. Voting ends on Friday, October 9th.

BIG Winners Announced: Winter 2015

The Big Ideas Generator (BIG) announces a new cohort of Seed and Vision winners!

BIG and Arete make front page news

BIG and Arete have made the front page at UChicago News!