Updated September 6, 2026

Foundation Grants for Biomedical Research

Private foundation and nonprofit grants funding biomedical and life science research. A live alternative-funding list for labs looking beyond the NIH.

More biomedical researchers are looking past the NIH than at any point in recent memory. Federal awards have become dramatically scarcer in 2026, with far fewer new grants issued than in prior years and success rates falling at institutes across the agency. Labs that once ran entirely on federal money are now building foundation funding into their core strategy rather than treating it as a supplement.

Private philanthropy cannot replace federal science funding at scale, but the foundation world is deep, and it moved in 2026. Several major foundations raised their annual payouts specifically in response to the federal squeeze, new bridge funding programs have launched, and disease-focused foundations continue to fund basic, translational, and clinical work across nearly every area of biomedicine. Foundation grants also tend to reward things federal review can undervalue: early stage ideas, pilot data generation, and higher-risk directions.

This collection surfaces open grants from foundations and nonprofit funders supporting biomedical and life science research. Expect more variety in process than you see with federal mechanisms. Many foundations require a letter of intent first, some run rolling deadlines, and a few work by nomination. Each listing links to the full details so you can see what the path to funding actually looks like.