Tanmay Lele, Ph.D., has been awarded the National Science Foundation (NSF) Early-concept Grant for Exploratory Research (EAGER). The $300K grant will be used to study Rules for cellular adaptation to the mechanical properties of their environment.

Lele’s research is one of 29 newly awarded projects and represents exploratory work in its early stages on untested but potentially transformative research ideas or approaches.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) announced the awards in support of Understanding the Rules of Life, one of the agency’s “10 Big Ideas for Future NSF Investments.” The awards, totaling $15 million, demonstrate NSF’s commitment to address some of the greatest challenges in understanding the living world, in all of its complex levels of organization, from the molecular scale through to the biosphere.

More information is available on NSF’s Big Ideas website.