About the Noble Fund
The Noble Family Innovation Fund, established with a $10 million philanthropic commitment to the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA, supports basic and translational research involving interactions on the nanoscale — measured in billionths of a meter. Funding is earmarked for projects with substantial promise for commercialization and societal impact. The goal is to create a model for academic research and entrepreneurship that enables strategic investment to seed discoveries that have the potential to be translated for the public good
“The Noble Family Innovation Fund adds momentum to our efforts at the CNSI to facilitate basic discovery, and to translate our discoveries into knowledge-driven commercial enterprises,” said Jeff F. Miller, UCLA’s Fred Kavli Professor of NanoSystems Sciences and the director of the CNSI. “This is a remarkable example of philanthropy with the potential to not only accelerate game-changing technologies on the path to the market — where they can do the most good for the most people — but also feed job creation in California.”
The objectives of the Noble Family Innovation Fund at CNSI are to:
- Drive leading-edge research in materials, energy, information technologies, environmental sustainability, life and biomedical sciences and related areas for the benefit of society
- Accelerate high-risk/high-reward interdisciplinary research, from basic to translational, and the development of new tools and technologies with exceptional promise
- Provide investigators with resources to jump‐start new research efforts and directions by providing seed‐funding to generate results that will lead to follow-on funding (i.e., federal, foundation, private, and/or other University fund sources such as the TDG-sponsored UCLA Innovation Fund)
- Support discovery, innovation, invention, and entrepreneurship at UCLA
Seed Funding Program
The CNSI issues an annual call soliciting applications for funding by the Noble Family Innovation Fund Seed Funding Program. Awards are made for a period of up to 2 years and $250,000. Priority will be given to team science projects that propose to advance bold research concepts for maximized societal impact. Proposed projects should exhibit the potential to secure external funding (i.e., federal research support, foundation support, capital investment, etc.) at the end of the funding period. Applicants are encouraged to collaborate with and/or utilize CNSI Technology Centers to advance their research mission.
The current round of submissions are under consideration. Funding announcements are announced during Winter quarter. The next round of submissions will be announced in early 2023.
2022 Awardees
To be announced July 2022.
2021 Awardees
Big data and artificial intelligence
Project Title: 2D-Material-Based Optoelectronics for Optical Neural Networks and AI-Based Cameras
Investigators: Xiangfeng Duan; Aydogan Ozcan
- A team headed by Xiangfeng Duan, a professor of chemistry and biochemistry and a CNSI member, is advancing photonics — energy-efficient technologies that use particles of light in place of the electrons used in electronics — for applications such as artificial intelligence and image capture. The team will explore ways to improve signal processing using two-dimensional materials, which are arranged in layers only a few atoms thick and derive special qualities from quantum mechanics.

Xiangfeng Duan
UCLA Chemistry & Biochemistry

Aydogan Ozcan
UCLA Engineering
Nanomedicine
Project Title: Shedding Light on the Protein Interactome
Investigators: Keriann Backus; Jahan Dawlaty; Steven Bensigner; Peter Tontonoz
- A collaboration led by CNSI member Keriann Backus, assistant professor of biological chemistry and of chemistry and biochemistry, aims to develop a new method for mapping the protein interactions that are fundamental to almost every process in living things. The ability to label proteins with iodine using laser-mediated excitation could accelerate our understanding of the millions of interactions that are regulated by proteins in human cells, including interactions with drug molecules.

Keriann M. Backus
UCLA Biological Chemistry
Project Title: Abuse Deterrent Opioid Prodrugs with Lowered Addiction Potential
Investigators: Cathy Cahill; Chris Evans; Heather Maynard
- Catherine Cahill, professor-in-residence of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences, is heading up a team seeking to curb opioid addiction, which is in part driven by users’ ability to concentrate and inhale or inject drugs such as oxycodone. The researchers are exploring a method for rendering opioids inactive unless digested in the stomach, as well as slowing their release into the body.

Heather Maynard
UCLA Chemistry & Biochemistry

Cathy Cahill
UCLA Psychiatry & Biobehavioral Sciences
Project Title: Improve Mitochondrial DNA Quality Control to Ward Off Aging and Mitochondrial Diseases
Investigators: Ming Guo, Bruce Hay, Robert Damoiseaux, Jonathan Wanagat
- CNSI member Ming Guo, the P. Gene and Elaine Smith Professor of Alzheimer’s Disease Research and professor of neurology and of molecular and medical pharmacology, leads a team addressing age-related illnesses such as Alzheimer’s, heart disease, cancer and diabetes. The investigators aim to identify drugs that eliminate mutated DNA in mitochondria — the powerhouses of the cell. Such mutations appear increasingly with age and are associated with a host of disorders.

Robert Damoiseaux
UCLA Pharmacology

Ming Guo
UCLA Neurology
Project Title: Synthetic Biology Approaches to Cannabinoid Diversification and Production
Investigators: Yi Tang; Neil Garg
- A project dedicated to using yeast to produce potential medicinal compounds naturally found in the cannabis plant is helmed by CNSI member Yi Tang, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, of chemistry and biochemistry and of bioengineering, and Neil Garg, the Kenneth N. Trueblood Endowed Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry and chair and distinguished professor of chemistry and biochemistry. This is the first UCLA-based grant to utilize the CNSI’s new Living Biofoundry, established through the National Science Foundation–funded BioPACIFIC Materials Innovation Platform.

Yi Tang
UCLA Chemistry & Biochemistry

Neil Garg
UCLA Chemistry & Biochemistry
Project Title: Therapeutic Liver Targeting Nanoparticles for Peanut Allergy and Anaphylaxis
Investigators: Tian Xia; Andre Nel
- A team led by Tian Xia, an associate adjunct professor of nanomedicine and CNSI member, is advancing a potential treatment for severe food allergies. The investigators have generated a nanoparticle meant to deliver an allergen directly to cells in the liver that regulate immune responses, potentially causing the body to tolerate that allergen.

Tian Xia
UCLA Medicine

Andre Nel
UCLA Medicine
Sustainability and clean energy technologies
Project Title: The Future is Brown: Genetic Engineering Technology Innovation in Kelp
Investigators: Siobhan Braybrook; Tim Malloy
- CNSI member Siobhan Braybrook, assistant professor of molecular, cellular and developmental biology, and Timothy Malloy, the Frank G. Wells Professor of Environmental Law, lead a project focused on genetically engineering kelp and other forms of brown algae to absorb more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, as well as mapping the legal and regulatory issues related to such a technology.

Siobhan Braybrook
UCLA Bioscience

Tim Malloy
UCLA Law
Project Title: Laser-scribed Vanadium Oxide Cathodes for Grid-Scale Energy Storage
Investigators: Richard Kaner; Yuzhang Li
- A team led by CNSI member Richard Kaner, the Dr. Myung Ki Hong Endowed Professor of Materials Innovation and distinguished professor of chemistry and biochemistry and of materials science and engineering, is furthering an approach for energy storage based on abundant, nontoxic zinc rather than lithium. The team’s goal is to create technology for grid-level batteries that store energy from sustainable but intermittent sources such as the sun and wind.

Richard Kaner
UCLA Chemistry & Biochemistry

Yuzhang Li
UCLA Engineering
Project Title: Concentrated Solar-Thermal Co-Production of Hydroden and High-Value Solid Carbon Forms
Investigators: Tim Fisher; Yves Rubin; Mitchell Spearrin
- A project developing a zero–carbon footprint process for generating hydrogen for energy is led by Tim Fisher, the John P. and Claudia H. Schauerman Endowed Professor of Engineering and chair and professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, and Yves Rubin, professor of chemistry and biochemistry, both of whom are members of the CNSI. The team’s strategy would use sunlight to cleanly turn methane into hydrogen and graphite, a raw material for batteries.

Yves Rubin
UCLA Chemistry & Biochemistry

Mitchell Spearrin
UCLA Engineering

Tim Fisher
UCLA Engineering
Project Title: Precision Cultured Meat using Edible and Scalable Scaffolds
Investigator: Amy Rowat
- CNSI member Amy Rowat, associate professor and vice chair of integrative biology and physiology, leads a team advancing a process for creating customized, labmade meat. By growing tissue on an edible scaffold, the researchers intend to produce food that can mimic the taste and texture of different cuts of steak without the environmental detriments that come with traditional livestock farming and processing.

Amy Rowat
Integrative Biology & Physiology
Past Seminars
Click the play icon to view previous Noble Fund virtual webinars:
Publications
- Xiangfeng Duan
- Zhuocheng Yan, Dong Xu, Zhaoyang Lin, Peiqi Wang, Bocheng Cao, Huaying Ren, Frank Song, Chengzhang Wan, Laiyuan Wang, Jingxuan Zhou, Xun Zhao, Jun Chen, Yu Huang, Xiangfeng Duan, Highly stretchable van der Waals thin films for adaptable and breathable electronic membranes, Science, Volume 375, 2022, https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abl8941
- Andre Nel
- Qi Liu, Xiang Wang, Yu-Pei Liao, Chong Hyun Chang, Jiulong Li, Tian Xia, Andre E. Nel, Use of a liver-targeting nanoparticle platform to intervene in peanut-induced anaphylaxis through delivery of an Ara h2 T-cell epitope, Nano Today, Volume 42, 2022, 101370, ISSN 1748-0132, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nantod.2021.101370
- Tim Fisher
- Mostafa Abuseada, Chuyu Wei, R. Mitchell Spearrin, and Timothy S. Fisher, Solar–Thermal Production of Graphitic Carbon and Hydrogen via Methane Decomposition, Energy & Fuels 2022 36 (7), 3920-3928
DOI: 10.1021/acs.energyfuels.1c04405
- Mostafa Abuseada, Chuyu Wei, R. Mitchell Spearrin, and Timothy S. Fisher, Solar–Thermal Production of Graphitic Carbon and Hydrogen via Methane Decomposition, Energy & Fuels 2022 36 (7), 3920-3928
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