Q&A: How MIT Global Seed Funds turn seed grants into scientific breakthroughs

MIT chemistry professor Matt Shoulders describes how Global Seed Funds grants, which have awarded over $30 million to more than 1,300 faculty projects since 2008, turned early international partnerships into major research programs. His first 2013 grant led to an NIH Director's New Innovator Award worth more than $2 million, and GSF funding he received connects to roughly $18 to $20 million in outside research support. The collaborations seeded work on Rubisco engineering, collagen disease models, and CRISPR-Cas9 evolution in human cells.