The Office of Foundations Relations is pleased to share this open call for funding from the Wellcome Leap Program.
- UCSC Contact: Sarah Carle | sacarle@ucsc.edu
- Funder: Wellcome Leap
- Opportunity: Wellcome Leap Program: Focused Antibiotics
- Abstract Deadline: May 15, 2026
Overview:
The goal of the Focused Antibiotics program is to reformulate existing antibiotics to spare the gut microbiome without loss of treatment efficacy. Scaling these formulations as first-line therapeutics for the most common outpatient bacterial infections, Focused Antibiotics could reduce the global annual occurrence of antibiotic-driven resistant infections by as much as 40% — potentially avoiding over 100 million resistant infections even within a decade of real-world use.
- Thrust 1: Demonstrate investigational focused formulations of existing antibiotics that do not impact the gut microbiome while maintaining or improving efficacy relative to standard-of-care antibiotics in pre-clinical in vitro and animal models.
- Thrust 1A: Create new carrier options, such as nanoparticles or peptides, that can be formulated with existing antibiotics to enable the development of focused antibiotics.
- Thrust 1B: Through pre-clinical development, including IND-enabling development, demonstrate that focused antibiotics do not cause gut microbiome changes (as compared to placebo) and have the same efficacy in an animal model as standard first-line treatment for the relevant infection.
- Thrust 2: Identify specific antibiotic-induced human gut microbiome changes that predict the development of subsequent resistant bacterial infection with >80% accuracy.
Please read the program announcement for additional information on the program goals and description of thrust areas. See Abstract Guidelines and Abstract Template.
Please refer to the list of FAQs.
Funding Information:
- There is no pre-set number of awards.
- Award sizes will vary based on the scope and requirements of the selected proposals. Collectively, all performer budgets will comprise the program’s total funding of up to $50 million.
- Full direct and government-certified indirect costs appropriate to the execution of the research, are eligible.
Eligibility:
- Performers from universities and research institutions: small, medium, and large companies (including venture-backed); and government or non-profit research organizations are invited to propose.
Timeline:
- May 15, 2026 @ 8:59 pm PT Abstract deadline
- May 30, 2026 @ 4:00 am PT Abstract feedback sent
- June 29, 2026 @ 8:59 pm PT Full proposal due
- July 29, 2026 @ 4:00 am PT Decision
Special Instructions:
Please notify the Office of Foundation Relations if you are interested in applying to this opportunity (fr@ucsc.edu). For support developing your abstract, please send a request to the Office of Research Development, resdev@ucsc.edu. If invited to submit a full proposal, please submit a proposal intake form prior to UCSC’s internal Institutional Deadlines. Your RDS can also help you develop your proposal.
Call sent: April 17, 2026
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The Office of Foundation Relations is a unit of University Advancement. The FR team creates and maintains mutually beneficial, long-term relationships with private organizations, matching grant initiatives with educational and research programs and centers. FR supports faculty and staff to identify and approach these and other private foundations and corporations for funding, to assist in strategic positioning of the grant application, and to facilitate funder campus visits.
For a list of recent funding opportunities, please visit the FR website: FR Calls for Funding.