Human Frontier Science Program (HFSP)

02/09/2026

We are deeply saddened by the passing of Ada Yonath, Nobel laureate, pioneering structural biologist and longtime member of the HFSP community.

Ada’s extraordinary persistence in revealing the structure of the ribosome transformed our understanding of one of life’s most fundamental processes and ultimately earned her the 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Her connection with HFSP began as a Program Grant awardee in 2003 and continued for more than two decades. She joined us for HFSP’s 30th anniversary in 2019 and returned to Japan for the HFSP Science Summit in 2025.

We remember a remarkable scientist whose career embodied the curiosity, courage and persistence at the heart of frontier science.
🔗 https://zurl.co/0wCox

01/09/2026

What happens when you invest in bold ideas, international collaboration and curiosity-driven science? 🌍🔬

The HFSP Grand Review 2025, an independent international evaluation carried out by Prognos and Digital Science, confirms the distinctive impact of HFSP-supported research across decades.

Among the findings:

🔹 More than 1/3 of HFSP-supported publications rank among the global Top 10% by field-normalized citation impact.

🔹 HFSP ranks #1 for patent citations from basic research, at 22.2%, among the international funders benchmarked.

🔹 HFSP supports conceptually novel, high-risk research that challenges established scientific paradigms and helps open new research directions.

🔹 International collaborations established through HFSP can continue more than a decade after funding ends.

The findings highlight HFSP’s distinctive role in supporting frontier research that crosses disciplines and borders — and in creating scientific impact that extends well beyond the lifetime of an individual grant.

🔗 Explore the findings and the HFSP Grand Review 2025: https://zurl.co/brgBl

28/08/2026

Mapping the avian brain with light 🐦🧠

There are around 11,000 bird species in the world, yet fewer than ten are commonly studied in neuroscience. That leaves a huge part of the story of brain evolution unexplored.
An HFSP-supported team is working to change that by developing an affordable, portable and noninvasive way to study brain activity in birds, using light.

Testing the approach in pigeons, the researchers used optical imaging to identify functional regions of the brain and map how they communicate with each other. When they compared the results with MRI, the two methods produced remarkably consistent maps.
The team is now taking the technology further, developing lightweight, customizable imaging “helmets” designed to eventually capture activity across the avian brain in 3D.

By making brain imaging easier to use across different bird species and settings, this technology could open the door to much broader studies of learning, memory, navigation and the evolution of cognition.

🔗 Read the full HFSP story: https://zurl.co/tj197

26/08/2026

📖 The HFSP Frontier Workshop Book of Abstracts is now available.

From fossil heritage and paleo-genomics to AI, robotics and computational approaches, the Book of Abstracts brings together the scientific contributions that shaped three days of interdisciplinary exchange in London.

Explore the abstracts from keynote lectures, invited speakers and selected oral presentations:
🔗 https://zurl.co/jrceG

24/08/2026

🎥 Missed a talk at the 25th HFSP Awardees Meeting or want to watch one again?

Presentations from are now available on the HFSP YouTube channel, giving you another opportunity to explore the frontier research shared by HFSP awardees and invited speakers in Geneva.
Catch up on the science, revisit your favorite talks, or discover something you missed during the meeting!

▶️ Watch the videos: https://zurl.co/wnYdH

Talk by Tom Rhys Bishop, Cardiff University, UK, at the 25th HFSP A...

20/08/2026

Can seals keep a beat? 🦭🎵

Harbor seals have some remarkable abilities when it comes to sound and rhythm. They can precisely control the length and pitch of their calls, alter their vocal tract while calling, and even produce rhythmic patterns by repeatedly slapping their flippers.

These abilities make them fascinating subjects for an HFSP-supported team investigating a bigger question: how did rhythm evolve as a tool for communication and social interaction?

Through the project “The Social Origins of Rhythm,” researchers are bringing together animal behavior, neuroscience, marine biology and music cognition to explore the building blocks of rhythm across marine mammals.

🦭 Discover more: https://zurl.co/YGf2M

18/08/2026

Three days of frontier science, new connections and a truly international HFSP community.

The 25th HFSP Awardees Meeting brought together around 220 participants from 29 countries in Geneva for scientific talks, lively poster sessions, inspiring lectures, and plenty of conversations in between.

Want to look back at ? Our full recap is now online, with links to the program, the Book of Abstracts, the photo gallery, and the videos.

👉 https://zurl.co/5gZKz

14/08/2026

Bats build social networks and their brains map them! 🦇🧠

HFSP-supported researchers found that new groups of Egyptian fruit bats can go from rapidly changing interactions to stable relationships and dominance hierarchies within just a few days.

Inside the brain, hippocampal neurons keep track of other bats, including their identity, social relationships, direction and distance.

The findings connect two sides of social life: how groups organize and how the brain represents the individuals within them.

🔗 Read the full story: https://zurl.co/DzE04

13/08/2026

Three days of inspiring science, new perspectives and meaningful conversations! 🙂

From thought-provoking presentations to lively discussions and new collaborations, the HFSP Frontier Workshop "Bridging Fossil Records and Modern Science: Integrative Approaches to Evolution" was filled with memorable moments!

📸 Browse the photos:
https://zurl.co/ABK9d

Three days. Countless conversations. (Hopefully!) New collaborations. By bringing together expertise from paleontology, evolutionary biology, mathematics, physics and computational sciences, the workshop has highlighted the value of crossing disciplinary boundaries to address some of the biggest que...

12/08/2026

The science presented at the 25th HFSP Awardees Meeting doesn’t end in Geneva. 🧬🌍

Our Book of Abstracts is now available online, bringing together the wide range of research, bold questions, and interdisciplinary approaches shared by HFSP awardees during the meeting.

Whether you joined us in Geneva or want to discover the science presented at , explore the abstracts and revisit the ideas that shaped this year’s meeting.

📖 Read the Book of Abstracts: https://zurl.co/22qrN