Harvard Q-FASTR Therapeutics Acceleration Grants

Q-FASTR Pilot Award

Supports Harvard investigators with early funding for biomedical trials and validation.

⚠ This may reflect a past cycle — verify the current call on the funder's site.

The Q-FASTR Pilot Award is administered by Q-FASTR (Quadrangle Fund for Advancing and Seeding Translational Research), an initiative within Harvard Medical School's Innovation Hub (I-Hub) under the Office of the Dean. Q-FASTR was established in 2014 through an initial philanthropic gift from Phill Gross, subsequently matched by grants from the Warren Alpert Foundation and Barbara and Louis Perlmutter. Since inception in 2016, Q-FASTR has awarded approximately $16.8 million across 100 projects, generating 53 patents, 21 publications, and 58 follow-on funding events or exits, with awardees collectively attracting close to $349 million in follow-on capital. The Pilot Award funds up to $100,000 in direct costs for up to one year, supporting performance of a critical experiment or defined set of experiments to validate a therapeutics-related concept.

Eligible activities include target validation studies and assay development and validation for screening purposes; mechanistic inquiry aimed at new target identification is typically excluded. Eligible applicants are assistant, associate, and full professors with research programs physically located in the HMS Quadrangle who assign intellectual property to Harvard University, along with HSCRB faculty and LSP investigators under joint Harvard-affiliate IP agreements. Lead PIs must commit a minimum of 1% institutional base salary and effort. Travel is not a permitted budget item; capital equipment, computers, and software require pre-approval from the Senior Director. Indirect costs for collaborating institutions are capped at 20% of total direct costs.

For the 2026 cycle, the RFP was released December 2, 2025; pre-proposals were due March 3, 2026; full proposals were due May 5, 2026; and funding is scheduled to begin July 1, 2026. Approximately 10 new awards total are anticipated across both Pilot and Development tracks combined for 2026. The 2026 cycle full proposal deadline has passed; the 2027 cycle has not yet been announced. Investigators should contact Dr. Ifat Rubin-Bejerano (ifat_rubin-bejerano@hms.harvard.edu) for pre-submission inquiries.