The LSRF solicits monies from industry, foundations, and individuals to support postdoctoral fellowships across the spectrum of the life sciences: biochemistry; cell, developmental, molecular, plant, structural, organismic population and evolutionary biology; endocrinology; immunology; microbiology; neurobiology; physiology; virology.

Each sponsor supports one or more designated individuals, chosen by the Foundation's Board on the basis of the merit of the proposed research and the quality of the individual's past performance, as judged by the Foundation's Peer Review Committee. In this way, the Foundation offers sponsors a personal, cost-effective way to support excellence in non-targeted biological research.

Eligibility. Three-year fellowships will be awarded on a competitive basis to graduates of medical and graduate schools in the biological sciences holding MD, PhD, DVM or DDS degrees. Awards will be based solely on the quality of the individual applicant's previous accomplishments, and on the merit of the proposal for postdoctoral research. Persons doing a second postdoc are eligible only if they are transferring to a different supervisor's laboratory and embarking on a new project not connected to their previous research. All U.S. citizens are eligible to apply with no geographic restriction on the laboratory of their choice. Foreign applicants will be eligible for study in U.S. laboratories. LSRF fellows must carry out their research at nonprofit institutions. LSRF fellows may change projects, laboratories, and/or institutions during the fellowship as long as the eligibility rules listed here are not violated. A person holding a faculty appointment is not eligible to apply for an LSRF fellowship.

Note: There may be no more than one LSRF fellow in any one laboratory at a time. If a laboratory contains an LSRF fellow, an applicant intending to work in that particular lab would be eligible to apply only during the current fellow's final year. However, multiple applicants may apply from a lab which does not contain an LSRF fellow (but only one fellowship would be awarded). Please verify this matter with your intended supervisor.

The fellowship cannot be used to support research that has a patent commitment or involves any other kind of agreement with a commercial, profit-making company. Any patentable discovery from the individual's research becomes the property of the institution where the research is conducted.

Sponsorship. The Peer Review Committee chooses finalists exclusively by the merit of their application. LSRF then works closely with sponsors to find the fellow(s) amongst our finalists who is most relevant to the sponsor's interests. Corporate, foundation, or individual sponsors will have their name directly associated with individual recipients whom they sponsor. The fellow will acknowledge this affiliation in all publications. For example: "[Name of fellow] is a [Name of Sponsor] Fellow of LSRF." LSRF encourages close interactions between fellows and sponsors through yearly visits of fellows to sponsors at the sponsor's initiative and through our annual scientific meeting. At this meeting fellows present talks or posters on their research, and there are guest speakers as well.

Annual Meeting. Once each year all current fellows will meet for two days and present their research. The LSRF Board and Staff, the Sponsors, the Peer Review Committee and Guest Scientists are invited to attend the meeting.

In addition, fellows must agree to meet at least once a year with their sponsor. In the case of corporate sponsors, this usually means a visit by the fellow to the company. This visit is initiated by the sponsor.

Stipends. The fellowship award is $57,000 per year and is meant to be a minigrant. LSRF keeps $1,000 for administrative expenses and passes the rest to the fellow. Effective June 1, 2009, the salary scale begins at $43,000 for a first-year postdoctoral, $45,000 for a second year, and $47,000 thereafter. The fellow, not the advisor, will control expenditure of the remainder. It may be used for fringe benefits (up to $2,000/year), travel to the host institution, travel to visit the sponsor and to the LSRF annual meeting, research supplies or equipment in support of the fellow's research. The LSRF does not award an institutional allowance for overhead.

An escrow fund is available to fellows who can elect to have up to $5,000 per year withheld from their grant by LSRF. At the end of their fellowship, they will receive the withheld money as a one-time grant, if and when they assume a position at a nonprofit institution in the United States. Fellows who elect to have an escrow account will then be obligated to their sponsor for one more year. This obligation includes the visit to the sponsor and the acknowledgment of sponsorship in publications.