The Seattle-based Paul G. Allen Family Foundation is awarding about $10.5 million across seven research projects.
The funding, announced Tuesday, is focused on sex hormones and extracellular vesicles, which come from cells and help with intercellular communication.
Four of the projects will focus on extracellular vesicles, and three will focus on sex hormones. Eighteen total researchers are leading the projects.
The Paul G. Allen Frontiers Group, a division of the Seattle-based research nonprofit the Allen Institute, advised the foundation on the awards.
Discoveries that arise from this research "have the potential to not only change and challenge our current understanding of basic biological principles but also are poised to reveal significant implications in human health," Kathy Richmond, director of the Frontiers Group, said in a news release.
According to the release, extracellular vesicles hold major promise for therapeutic delivery, but researchers don't understand them well, which is hindering progress. The projects on sex hormones, meanwhile, seek to go beyond sex hormones' reproduction functions and understand how they impact other biological processes.
The Paul G. Allen Family Foundation was founded in 1988 by late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and his sister, Jody Allen. It funds work in the environment, arts, communities and bioscience, according to its website.
The Allen Institute's Frontiers Group was founded in 2016. Other divisions at the institute include the Allen Institute for Cell Science, the Allen Institute for Immunology, the Allen Institute for Brain Science and the Allen Institute for Neural Dynamics, which launched in November 2021.
The Allen Institute has landed major funding for brain research projects recently, including $47 million in September and $173 million in September of last year.
