{"id":1258,"date":"2024-03-11T20:06:09","date_gmt":"2024-03-11T20:06:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.homeworld.bio\/?p=1258"},"modified":"2026-01-10T00:48:34","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T00:48:34","slug":"announcing-the-garden-grants-winners-in-climate-biotech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.homeworld.bio\/blog\/announcing-the-garden-grants-winners-in-climate-biotech\/","title":{"rendered":"Announcing the Garden Grants Winners"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Today we share the Garden Grants Winners, awarding $1.35M across 16 teams tackling big problems for climate biotech.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

“One of the characteristics of successful scientists is having courage. Once you get your courage up and believe that you can do important problems, then you can. If you think you can’t, almost surely you are not going to.”<\/em> <\/p>\nRichard Hamming<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Every big idea starts somewhere. It might be a \u201cwhat if\u2026\u201d that turns into a diagram that becomes a written concept. It might be working backward from a dream impact for climate for which you\u2019ve identified a humble, first experiment. But wherever an idea begins, in biology, it all ends up in the physical world at some point. And while working with words and bits can be cheap, working with atoms (especially ones that form living beings) costs money. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Too often, big ideas in science are blocked due to a lack of early funding. The scientists who want to work on important problems are unable to. Homeworld exists to fill this crucial gap in funding and problem-solving. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today we are sharing the good news that Homeworld Collective has awarded $1.35 million dollars to 16 teams to act on their big ideas through Homeworld\u2019s inaugural Garden Grants program<\/a>. We chose to support practitioners trying to tackle some of the biggest problems in climate. Our only constraint for this round was that they use protein engineering to address those problems. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After announcing the Garden Grants opportunity, 65 teams submitted ideas that totaled $5.5 million of requests. Every applicant took a bet on a new way of funding science and trusted Homeworld to support them<\/a>. Other practitioners took note, and funders took note. Our program, our vision, was working: reviewers were communicating directly with applicants to make proposals stronger, and every proposal received transparent feedback regardless of the funding decision. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Image
See all the funded projects for 2024 and all the submitted projects on our experiment.com platform<\/a>. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Our initial plan was to award $1 million in grants, but there were more great ideas than that. So, out of appreciation for the community and excitement for their projects, we funded four more teams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Homeworld\u2019s mission here is to set the tone for boldness, ambition and courage. In the spirit of Richard Hamming, we want to help scientists believe that they can start small to dream big, with clear problems  as their guide.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the weeks ahead, we\u2019re going to introduce you to the teams we\u2019ve funded. Projects were funded in 6 different countries and are applying protein engineering to climate  applications. But every grant awardee has a few things in common: <\/p>\n\n\n\n