
Covid-19 Fast Grants recipients - jseliger
https://fastgrants.org/#recipients
======
dannykwells
I'm part of one of these! Very exciting. Overall fastgrants is a great
organization. 48 hour turnaround is incredible and could be paradigm shifting
for getting science done. Thanks pc and everyone else for the chance to get
some science done!

~~~
adventured
Are you able to discuss what you're working on? It would be very interesting
to hear more about it if so.

~~~
dannykwells
I'm working with the Satpathy lab on their project. I'm a PI at the Parker
Institute. We usually do cancer, but are bringing our tools to COVID research
in this time.

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KenoFischer
Glad to see Dr. Patrick Hsu ([https://bioeng.berkeley.edu/faculty/patrick-
hsu](https://bioeng.berkeley.edu/faculty/patrick-hsu)) among the recipients.
He is one of the smartest and most impressive people I know, so at least from
my limited vantage point, this money is going to the right people :).

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elric
This is a great initiative, and it's heart warming to see that the list is
getting quite long. Most of these go far beyond my level of understanding, so
I'm guessing I'm not the target audience. Nevertheless, it would be great if
they could a one or two line elevator pitch-style "why this is important"
section to each recipient's blurb.

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bretthellman
This is fantastic - thank you Fast Grants!

Mental health is an area that could really use your support in the next round
of grants.

Spikes in post-traumatic stress disorder are being documented among vulnerable
populations, health workers and other front-line personnel.

\- [https://news.berkeley.edu/2020/04/17/covid-19-mental-
health-...](https://news.berkeley.edu/2020/04/17/covid-19-mental-health-and-
well-being-for-ourselves-and-our-children/)

\- [https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/16/grocery-store-workers-
need-f...](https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/16/grocery-store-workers-need-for-
mental-health-care-may-outlast-pandemic.html)

\- [https://www.newyorker.com/culture/video-dept/the-mental-
heal...](https://www.newyorker.com/culture/video-dept/the-mental-health-
crises-of-the-coronavirus-pandemic)

Sadly, no one appears to be funding the COVID-19 mental health crisis. This
would be a great opportunity for Fast Grants to be proactive. I personally
know clinical psychologists and researches desperately looking for funding to
get ahead of this next wave. LMK if you're interested in helping.

~~~
draw_down
Noble cause but not really what this is for.

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lbeltrame
Nice to see Dr.Netea there. I had the opportunity to work with him and his
team in a collaboration ten years ago, when studying the pathways leading to
antigen presenting cells activation.

On the topic of the immune system he certainly knows his quarters.

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willswire
My university also received a RAPID grant -
[https://www.udel.edu/udaily/2020/march/covid-research-
superc...](https://www.udel.edu/udaily/2020/march/covid-research-
supercomputer-simulations-juan-perilla-jodi-hadden-perilla/)

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danieltillett
All very worthy, but nothing really unexpected [0]. I was hoping we would see
some radical ideas and scientists from obscure universities getting funded.

0\. Disclosure. I was a failed applicant, but I am not surprised as I am
neither an academic these days (I am in industry), nor did I ask for any
money.

~~~
comex
You applied for a grant but you didn't ask for any money?

~~~
danieltillett
Yep. I have money, what I asked for was collaborators. Of course I was
rejected because the fund supposedly ran out of money!

I should add I got no help with collaborators, but given the form letter I was
sent I strongly suspect nobody even read my application. If this wasn’t such a
serious problem it would be comical.

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bobosha
This makes me hopeful for the future, the next decade is likely to be amazing
for healthcare research.

Hopefully some good comes out of this unfolding tragedy and drives the next
generation to critical issues like healthcare & climate change than building
yet another photo/video sharing app.

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gregsadetsky
Small typo / wrong link on the site -> the link to "covidhge.com" (COVID Human
Genetic Effort) near the bottom of the page should be to
[https://www.covidhge.com/](https://www.covidhge.com/) (right now, it
incorrectly links to
[https://fastgrants.org/covidhge.com](https://fastgrants.org/covidhge.com) )

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zuhayeer
Cool to see Dr. Julia Schaletzky and her research work listed, she also did a
pretty informative podcast on the development of a vaccine a few weeks ago
[https://omny.fm/shows/curiosity-
daily/covid-19-coronavirus-v...](https://omny.fm/shows/curiosity-
daily/covid-19-coronavirus-vaccine-development-scientific-challenges-and-
timelines-dr-julia-schaletzky)

~~~
Melting_Harps
Youtube Mirror, as having ad blocks on will not allow you to listen on their
website:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyvwD8HI6Vs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyvwD8HI6Vs)

Listening now.

Update: Very good points, and I'm glad the interviewers pretty much gave her a
format to let her run free and discuss a myriad of points from Viral
structure, research efficacy, potential vaccine approaches, and regulatory
capture/political failure in diagnostics. She uses how the NIH pulled funding
prior to having a vaccine imminent only to have the priorities shift entirely
as a recent example of how short-lived memories and fashion can be deadly if
this government funded research paradigm alone is how we approach these
problems.

She seems like a very knowledge person (beyond her academic concentration) and
understands the implications to other catastrophes when dealing with an
unnecessary bureaucratic-political maze, its just not suited for foresight or
critical crisis management. Its a best reactionary in a knee-jerk manner, and
fails at scale in a catastrophic way. She makes a salient, albeit alarming,
point how this can be seen with how climate-change is being mishandled.

I'd like to get to know more about her and her work, highly recommended
podcast.

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bfdm
Proud to see a number of Canadian researchers and institutions on that list. I
wish them all success in their work on this.

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nl
Only 2 North American universities. 12 programs in California funded.

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curiousgal
Surprised to see researchers from big name universities. I was under the
impression that those universities took good care of their researchers.

~~~
jseliger
_I was under the impression that those universities took good care of their
researchers._

I'm under the impression that most university researchers's reputation, labs,
and tenure cases rely heavily on grants, and that most university "scientists"
today are really grant writers and grant managers.

That might be a little too cynical a take, but I've heard variations of it
enough times to take the view pretty seriously.

~~~
cycomanic
Unfortunately it's not cynical but the reality. Most people would be shocked
how much time academics have to spend on grant writing and other
administrative things. The whole system is completely broken, essentially we
are applying for money to spend time on writing grants to apply for more
money. The unfortunate reality is that in the experimental sciences there is
no way around this. You need the funds to be able to run experiments (grad
students are part of this as well) and if you ever stop you will never be able
to start back up again. Essentially you need to be able to show a track record
& preliminary results to be successful at getting a grant, if you stopped
applying for grants you have neither. Moreover often universities will give
you more teaching duties because you are not bringing in research funding. It
is a vicious circle.

