Research NewsletterIssue: ORN-2025-19

Rapid Response Bridge Funding Program

In the face of recent abrupt shifts in federal funding for education research, including large-scale terminations of National Science Foundation (NSF) research grant awards, we have developed a rapid response bridge grant opportunity for impacted scholars, in collaboration with The Kapor Foundation, The William T. Grant Foundation, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. This rapid response bridge funding opportunity is for scholars and teams whose grants have recently been cancelled by NSF. While it is impossible for private philanthropy to close the gap left by federal funders, we can provide modest grants to mitigate some of the impact on scholars, projects, and project teams. These $25,000 grants are for activities to address immediate needs following grant cancellations, including completing a wave of data collection, analyzing already collected data or writing, thoughtful project closure with community partners, or preparing grant proposals to continue the research. To be eligible for these grants, scholars must: (1) be working on research on STEM and education (including AI and CS, graduate education and MSIs, and scholarship that aims to reduce inequality), and (2) have had a recently terminated or cancelled grant from NSF. Where possible, we will prioritize early-career scholars.

To Apply:  We are asking that PIs provide:

• The original funded proposal
• Your NSF termination letter
• A 2–3-page (no more than 1200 words) narrative memo describing the plan for
• activities to be completed over a 6-month period.
• A budget for a maximum $25,000 (no indirect costs). We ask that scholars ask
• for only what they need within this limit, and to note if they have access to
• bridging funds at their university. Our goal is to fund as many people as possible
• with our limited funds.

Please send these materials to RapidResponse@spencer.org with Rapid Response in

the subject line.

There will be two deadlines for requests: May 30, 2025 and June 13, 2025 (12:00 p.m. Central). Principal Investigators may only apply once. Decisions for the May cycle will be made by June 15. Decisions for the June cycle will be made by June 30. Program contact: RapidResponse@spencer.org

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Recent NJIT Patents Issued by US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO)

Patent Title:   Injectable Formulations of Anesthetics for Any Pathological Pain

NJIT Ref No.:  18-039

Inventor(s):     Xu, Xiaoyang / Tao, Yuanxiang

Patent Application Status:  Issued Patent

Patent Issue Date: 4/29/2025

Patent No.:  12,285,528

Technology Licensing Status: Available (Jointly Owned)

NSF: Responsible Design, Development, and Deployment of Technologies (ReDDDoT)

NIH: Forecast: Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) Individual Postdoctoral Fellowship (Parent F32); Investigator Gateway Awards for Collaborative T1D Research (R03)

Department of Defense/US Army/DARPA/ONR: DoD Peer Reviewed Medical Research Program, Technology/Therapeutic Development Award; Alzheimer’s Research Program Transforming Research Award

NASA: University Leadership Initiative 2 (ULI2)

US dominance in AI needs to occur at every component layer, tech leaders say: Executives from prominent artificial intelligence technology companies told members of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee Thursday that the global diffusion of the U.S. technology stack is critical for the U.S. to win the AI race. Ensuring the U.S. produces and maintains control over the AI technology stack –– the individual components of an AI application, like its semiconductor chips, programming languages, interfaces and servers –– will determine if the country can lead the world in future AI innovation, witnesses told lawmakers.  Lisa Su, the CEO of Advanced Micro Devices, said that the U.S. maintaining its competitive edge in AI innovation “actually requires excellence at every layer of the stack,” something that can be further enabled with “very supportive government policies.” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman reiterated this posture, saying that the goal is for the entire world to be building its AI applications atop U.S.-built products. Altman made the case that global developers who don’t reference U.S.-made and -refined AI software tools for their individual software could create a digital threat. More information is posted on the NextGov website.

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FDA to deploy AI assistant for research reviews by end of June: The Food and Drug Administration launched an “aggressive timeline” on Thursday that charts its internal efforts to incorporate artificial intelligence across all of the agency’s 11 centers by this summer for use in scientific research reviews.  Following a pilot on generative AI tools’ efficacy in aiding scientific reviews, FDA Commissioner Martin Makary announced the deployment of the finalized version of the software across the agency’s specialized offices via a secured and unified platform. The AI tool is expected to handle the more tedious, repetitive aspects of the FDA’s scientific review to ensure agency scientists and experts are free to focus on critical components of the safety evaluation process. 

“I was blown away by the success of our first AI-assisted scientific review pilot,” Makary said in the press release. “We need to value our scientists’ time and reduce the amount of non-productive busywork that has historically consumed much of the review process. The agency-wide deployment of these capabilities holds tremendous promise in accelerating the review time for new therapies.” He further added that the official launch of an AI review assistant follows "years of talks about AI capabilities.” FDA centers are now asked to fully deploy the AI tool by June 30 and have it fully integrated into individual data platforms and networks. The agency hopes to ultimately expand the tool’s use cases, further enhance its capabilities for document integration and refine its outputs to center-specific needs and work. The FDA’s new chief AI officer, Jeremy Walsh, and the Director of the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research’s Strategic Programs Office Sridhar Mantha will both be at the helm of the implementation efforts. More information is posted on the NextGov website.

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Industry leaders stress need for National Quantum Reauthorization Act passage: Representatives from U.S. tech companies told House lawmakers that the funding provisions and collaborations offered by the National Quantum Initiative Reauthorization Act are integral for the U.S. to maintain its competitive edge in quantum information technology and science. Testifying before the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology on Wednesday, experts offered a range of perspectives on the current state of the U.S. quantum technology landscape and what is needed on the government side to bring these breakthroughs to market.

Leaders from Microsoft and Google in particular said that Congress should not only pass the NQI Reauthorization Act, but expand federally-funded quantum sciences research efforts and collaborations.

“We must prioritize our research funding institutions, particularly the [Department of Energy], [National Science Foundation], [National Institute of Standards and Technology] and NASA, along with the [Department of Defense] and the intelligence community,” said Charles Tahan, a partner with Microsoft Quantum and former director of the Biden administration’s National Quantum Coordination Office. “These agencies create programs that bridge the valley of death from the lab to the markets. America's great scientific institutions are unmatched in the world, and there is no private sector substitute.” Tahan noted that the diverse perspectives each of these agencies offer are assets when working in tandem on scaling fault-tolerant quantum technologies. More information is posted on the NextGov website