Quite simply: we could not do the work that we do without generous external funding, and we are grateful to the organizations below for supporting us!

Ongoing funding:

• Cottrell Postbaccalaureate Fellowship (Research Corporation for Science Advancement), “Marcell Simon: High-throughput approaches to biochemically characterizing the C-terminal domain of Firefly Luciferase”, Principal Investigator, $50,000 (2023-2024)

  • This award provides funding for a postbaccalaureate researcher (Marcell Simon) to explore new areas of luciferase biochemistry during a one year fellowship.

• CAREER Award (National Science Foundation), “Development of DNA polymerases capable of high fidelity modified DNA synthesis”, Principal Investigator, $400,000 (2018-2024)

  • This award provides funding for our lab's ongoing work to try to increase the accuracy of the synthesis of modified DNA.  The award provides funding for small laboratory equipment, 17 summer student salaries, general funding for research materials, and funding for two education initiatives.

• Keck Award (Keck Science Department).  “Discovery and Application of Modified-DNA Binding Domains”, Principal Investigator, $15,000 (2022-2025).

  • This seed award provides funding for development of a new project in our lab.  We hope to use these preliminary results in a future funding application!

Completed funding:

• R15 Award (National Institutes of Health), “High-throughput engineering and characterization of brighter luciferases”, Principal Investigator, $362,752 (2019-2023)

  • This award provides funding for our lab's ongoing work on the luciferase protein.  The goal of this award is to pioneer and apply new approaches to studying luciferase that we hope can improve research on this critical bioimaging tool. The award provides funding for a ultrasensitive macroscope, 12 summer student salaries, and lots of funding for research materials.

• Jean Dreyfus Lectureship for Undergraduate Institutions, “Applying molecular evolution to solve chemical problems – funding to bring Prof. David R. Liu to the Claremont Colleges”, co-lead Principal Investigator, $18,500 (2017-2018)

• Keck Award.  “Comparative Characterization and Engineering of Modified-DNA Polymerases”, Principal Investigator, $15,000 (2017-2019). Award terminated early due to receipt of NSF CAREER Award.

• Cottrell Scholar Award (Research Corporation for Science Advancement), “Biochemical characterization and engineering of luciferases through Statistical Coupling Analysis”, Principal Investigator, $100,000 (2016-2019)

• Cottrell College Science Award (Research Corporation for Science Advancement), “Biochemical characterization and engineering of Taq DNA polymerase mutants for the synthesis of 2’modified DNA”, Principal Investigator, $50,200 (2014-2016)

• TriLink ResearchRewards Grant (TriLink Biotechnologies), “Discovery and Characterization of New Mutant DNA Polymerase - Modified Substrate Interactions”, Principal Investigator, $10,000 (2013-2015)