Greetings,
We are excited to share this funding opportunity from Wellcome Leap, with support from Bayer. The aim of Resistance Networks is to measure the extent to which resistance moves through bacterial networks and to design interventions that prevent or slow that progression.
More information about the award can be found in the synopsis and links below. For a full list of currently open opportunities that have been announced through our office, please visit our new Current Opportunities web page. As a reminder, our Research Development team is available to provide proposal development support to FAS ladder faculty.
- OSP Deadline: July 17, 2026 at 9:00 AM ET
Departments or areas may require additional time for proposal review and submission. Please discuss a timeline with your departmental or FORA grants administrator.
- Sponsor Abstract Deadline: July 22, 2026 at 11:59 PM ET
- Award Amount: Award sizes will vary based on the scope and requirements of the selected proposals. There is no pre-set number of awards; collectively, all performer budgets will comprise the program’s total funding of up to $50 million. Projects will be funded for three years.
Full direct and government-certified indirect costs appropriate to the execution of the research, are eligible. There are no overhead or salary caps.
If the proposed project will involve any background IP or potentially lead to patentable inventions, interested PIs are advised to consult with OTD before submitting an abstract.
Program Overview
Wellcome Leap, with support from Bayer, has announced Resistance Networks, a $50M funding program that aims to measure the extent to which resistance moves through bacterial networks and to design interventions that prevent or slow that progression, with the goal of extending the efficacy of existing antibiotics and protecting new antibiotics under development. Antibiotic resistance is typically detected only after it has become a clinical problem—after an infection is found untreatable, a resistant bacterium isolated and tested, and in rare cases sequenced. Recent shifts in our understanding of microbial evolution suggest resistance emerges much earlier, moving from the bacterial networks that exist in and around us into pathogens that ultimately cause disease. Resistance Networks asks whether we can reframe the problem of antibiotic resistance from targeting resistant bacteria to an epidemiological problem within bacterial networks and, in so doing, develop novel strategies that slow the spread of resistance itself. To this end, the Resistance Networks program strives to build an epidemiological model that can predict whether a plasmid carrying antibiotic resistance genes (pARG) has epidemic-like potential (R₀ >1) to spread within and between human bacterial networks during and after antibiotic use. Proposers should clearly relate work in the thrust areas listed below to one or more of the program goals.
It is not necessary to form a large consortium or teams to address all facets of the program, as Wellcome Leap will coordinate program-level integration of efforts from individuals and small agile teams with deep (and sometimes narrow) expertise. Across all projects, Wellcome Leap will facilitate iterative and collaborative integration of findings to refine models, improve and validate predictive measures, and adapt approaches as teams make progress towards shared goals.
Priority Areas
- Thrust 1: Determine, at 80% balanced predictive accuracy, whether antibiotic-amplified pARGs exhibit epidemic-like transmission (R₀ > 1) within and between gut bacterial networks in response to antibiotic use.
- Thrust 2: Advance cost-effective tools that enable single-cell sequencing technology to scale measurements of plasmid transmission.
- Thrust 3: Test
in silico, model-guided key parameters and interventions in controlled
in vivo systems, targeting the dominant driver(s) identified by Thrust 1.
Eligibility Criteria
- Performers from universities and research institutions; small, medium, and large companies (including venture-backed); and government or non-profit research organizations.
- This program is open to applicants from around the world.
- Multiple collaborators can be on a single submission, but only the Principal Investigator (PI) will be able to submit the application on the portal. There is no limit to the number of Co-PIs.
- Applicants are encouraged to contact Wellcome Leap about joining its Health Breakthrough Network by executing its Master Academic Research Funding Agreement (MARFA, or CORFA for commercial entities) agreement. Full execution of the Wellcome Leap MARFA is not required for application submission but is required for any award. Harvard has an executed MARFA in place with Wellcome Leap.
Abstract Materials
- Proposal abstracts are no more than 7 pages, including the title page and references. Please view the abstract guidelines for further instructions and templates.
- Title Page (1 page)
- Executive Summary of Project (5 pages)
- Funding and Activities Summary (1 page)
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Given the confidentiality language PIs must accept when submitting their abstracts, OSP recommends PIs avoid inclusion of non-public information in their submission.
Additional Information and Resources
If the proposed project will involve any background IP or potentially lead to patentable inventions, interested PIs are advised to consult with OTD before submitting an abstract.
Applicants may consult the Resistance Networks Program Announcement and the FAQs for more information. The abstract portal will open on July 15, 2026 at 11:59 PM ET and will close a week later on July 22, 2026 at 11:59 PM ET; interested applicants are encouraged to sign up for program updates to receive a reminder when the abstract portal opens.
All submissions will receive technical and/or programmatic feedback by August 5, 2026 (i.e., after this 15-day review round), as well as a recommendation to submit or not submit a full proposal due by September 4, 2026. Applicants may still submit a full proposal even if they receive a recommendation to not submit. All submissions will receive a ‘selected for funding’ or ‘not selected for funding’ decision by October 3, 2026.
Questions from FAS or SEAS faculty about this opportunity may be directed to research_development@fas.harvard.edu. |
