Life Sciences is sponsored by John Templeton Foundation. This funding area supports experimental, theoretical, and applied work on biological mechanisms, with an interest in innovative projects ranging from early-stage exploratory research to large initiatives.

It explicitly mentions supporting projects in 'Emergent Properties' and 'Genetics and Genomics', which could encompass research on adipose organoid microphysiological systems if framed within these broader biological mechanisms.

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تتم ترجمة بعض صفحات الموقع فقط إلى لغتك. الصفحات المتبقية هي باللغة الإنجليزية فقط. What constitutes life, and what are its limits?

What core processes produce the varieties of form, function, and complexity that can be observed in living or synthetic systems? The Life Sciences funding area supports experimental, theoretical, and applied* work on the biological mechanisms that produce life in its diverse forms.

We are interested in innovative projects ranging from smaller-scale, early-stage exploratory research (including pilot and proof-of-concept projects) to large, ambitious initiatives that seek transformative advances beyond incremental progress. Innovation can be conceptual, technological, methodological, analytical, or specific to some other clearly articulated aspect of the project.

In online funding inquiries (OFIs), applicants are encouraged to address how the proposed work is innovative and will advance the research field, have broad impact, or address challenging problems. The proposed project duration should be no more than three years and requested budgets should be well-justified and appropriate for the needs of the project.

Life Sciences supports projects in two sub-areas: (1) Emergent Properties and (2) Genetics and Genomics . Priorities for the 2026 funding cycle for each sub-area are outlined below. This year, a portion of our funding will be dedicated to a Foundation-wide Intelligence Venture .

Projects focused on Intelligence should be within one of the two Life Sciences sub-areas. We encourage a diversity of ideas. A connection to the Intelligence Venture is not required to submit an OFI.

If you wish to apply to participate in the Intelligence Venture, please select this option in the OFI submission portal. *In 2026, applied and translational projects will be considered ONLY for study of crop resilience and sustainability.

In 2026, we are prioritizing project ideas in the following topic areas: We support research that advances the scientific understanding of fundamental characteristics or behaviors of living or synthetic systems. We are especially interested in emergent properties that cannot be fully explained by the known characteristics of a complex system’s individual parts (e.g., an organism’s individual genes or cells).

In 2026, the emergent properties prioritized by Life Sciences are agency, consciousness, and intelligence, with particular interest in poorly understood emergent phenomena such as non-neural forms of intelligence and agency, and the physical, biological, and computational processes that underlie consciousness. Emergent phenomena are often understudied because of a lack of unified, well-integrated frameworks.

With this in mind, we are particularly interested in projects that advance rigorous research methodologies, standards, and quantitative metrics for analyzing and measuring emergence. These may draw on information-theoretic approaches, theoretical frameworks from complexity science, and alternative philosophical frameworks.

Importantly, while theoretical models and simulations are valuable, we prioritize projects grounded in real biological data (i.e., incorporate previously acquired biological data to improve accuracy) and that produce empirically testable predictions.

We expect emergent properties to be assessed in a broad range of proposed model systems, including organisms characterized as underutilized by the research community, synthetic systems, and artificial intelligence models. Meaningful progress in assessing emergent properties is likely to require conceptual integration across disciplines for the development of new methods, approaches, and technologies.

Therefore, we strongly encourage well-integrated interdisciplinary projects—for example, combining biology with ethics, philosophy, mathematics, engineering, physics, and computational sciences — that adopt a synergistic and coordinated approach.

For projects that involve the study of intelligence or consciousness in synthetic or artificial technologies, we welcome the thoughtful incorporation of an ethical component into the core scientific or engineering work. This includes analysis of the ethical, social, or moral implications of these technologies. However, no more than 20% of a project’s proposed budget should be allocated to this aspect of the project.

Our overarching goal for the genetics and genomics sub-area is to deepen our understanding of fundamental biological mechanisms. Through these studies, we aim to contribute to human well-being through improvements in human health and agricultural systems. Proposed projects should push beyond incremental advances and demonstrate transformative potential for findings to serve as the basis for future translational and applied research.

We welcome ideas for projects focused on making biological discoveries that establish new research directions and enable bold, question-driven projects in the years ahead. In 2026, we are prioritizing foundational research with a focus on mechanistically understanding the genetics behind protein activity.

We are particularly interested in research that connects genome regulation and RNA-regulatory mechanisms to their downstream effects on protein activity. In turn, our interests extend to how these effects impact cellular and organismal characteristics that contribute to human health and disease (including disease risk and resistance).

Understanding the interplay between these layers of regulation will create powerful opportunities to translate fundamental discoveries into practical applications that enhance human health. Building on these same principles, we are also interested in genetics-focused projects for crop resilience and sustainability.

We are particularly interested in projects that improve stress adaptation and disease resistance in plants through novel phenomena or innovative techniques with the aim of enhancing productivity.

To enable new research directions for improvements in human health and agricultural systems, we encourage projects that utilize diverse model systems (including synthetic biology-based approaches), develop novel or improved genetic approaches and tools (e.g., improvement in scale, throughput, resolution), and/or integrate computational and experimental methods.

We are also supportive of opportunities to work across disciplines to bridge gaps and advance genomics research and technology development through collaborative partnerships. Projects focused on translational research (except crop studies), clinical studies, clinical tools development, or conservation studies will NOT be considered.

Life Sciences and the 2026 Intelligence Venture In 2026, the John Templeton Foundation is launching a Foundation-wide Intelligence Venture . Life Sciences will join this Venture by supporting projects that deepen our understanding of intelligence across all its forms: biological, synthetic, and artificial intelligence (AI).

We aim to explore the shared principles and key differences between evolved life and engineered systems, while supporting new technologies that test fundamental questions about the nature of intelligence. Our interests are in the following three areas: Learning about the diversity of intelligence. We seek proposals exploring the many distinct and unexpected ways intelligence manifests.

This includes information processing in animals, effects of genetics on individual learning and intelligence, non-neural intelligence in plants and fungi, and forms of intelligence that challenge traditional brain-centric views. We encourage work on synthetic and artificial intelligence that are inspired by nature and replicate these features.

Expanding our vision of intelligence through a greater understanding of collective intelligence. We invite proposals that investigate how intelligence emerges and operates within complex and interconnected systems that go beyond individual intelligence.

This includes studies of distributed and shared intelligence, interspecies interactions, emergence of intelligence in biohybrid systems, and unconventional collective intelligence (e.g., emerging cognitive and decision-making abilities in cellular networks, engineered systems, and decentralized AI). Advancing forms of technological intelligence .

By building synthetic intelligences from the ground up, we seek to test fundamental theories about the origins and nature of intelligence — whether models of biological, computational, or hybrid systems. We welcome proposals that explore ways to advance intelligence in synthetic and engineered systems, with the aim of developing smarter technologies that can better serve humanity.

This includes use of synthetic biology to design minimal genetic circuits capable of achieving rapid adaptation and learning, alternative computing paradigms (e.g., neuromorphic, liquid computing), and AI models with unusual training dynamics and self-improvement loops. If you are interested in applying for a grant, please register and submit a Funding Inquiry at the Templeton Portal.

Associated Staff: Stephanie Morris; Gina Dyer; Emanuela Sani Is there anything unique about human intelligence? What if the story of intelligence does not culminate with us? Is the world of intelligences vaster, more varied, and more wonderful than we ever imagined?

Might intelligence be written into the fabric of reality itself? Starting in 2026, the John Templeton Foundation will award over $60 million in grants focused on such questions across our six funding areas.

Agency, Directionality, and Function: Foundations for a Science of Purpose Synthetic Living Machines and the Emergence of Purpose Goal-directed outcomes in complex chemical systems Our history through the lens of ancient sedimentary DNA: adding color to the picture Machina ex machina: Agency in the earliest translation machinery We All Are Multitudes: the Microchimerism, Human Health and Evolution Project Enter your Mastodon instance URL (optional)