CZI, Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Network, Japan’s Stellar Science Foundation Launch Global Science Scholars Postdoctoral Program

Redwood City, Calif. – Today, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Network, and the Stellar Science Foundation launched an international postdoctoral fellowship in bioengineering and biomedicine to advance early-stage careers and catalyze groundbreaking science globally. Global Science Scholars, spearheaded by the CZ Biohub Network in collaboration with leading research institutions in Japan, aims to foster innovation and drive discoveries in science and technology worldwide. The CZ Biohub Network is a collective of scientific institutes created and supported by CZI.

“Science is an international endeavor, and cross-pollinating people and ideas between countries is key to solving scientific challenges,” said Stephen Quake, Head of Science at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. “To really understand the cellular mechanisms of health and disease, we need a multi-national collaborative effort, and we’re excited to bring great scientific talent to the U.S. and to Japan to better understand the mysteries of the cell. With this new fellowship, I’m excited for the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Network to be part of Japan’s Global Startup Campus Initiative and harness the potential of great universities in Japan together with CZI’s world-class institutional partners and their entrepreneurial faculty.”

Anchored in the labs of selected premier researchers, each participating institution will host fellows for up to two years, providing them with the opportunity to conduct research in laboratories at top universities and research institutions and expand their experience in conducting cutting-edge research and state-of-the-art technology development in bioengineering and biomedicine. Postdoctoral fellows will contribute to research in their host countries while also bringing insights from their home institutions, creating a robust, multidirectional flow of expertise. Funded collaboratively by the CZ Biohub Network and the Japanese government, this fellowship opportunity reflects a shared commitment to advancing science as a global, cooperative endeavor. The CZ Biohub Network and the Cabinet Office will jointly fund rising star postdoctoral scholars through the program, with the Stellar Science Foundation identifying and managing relationships with labs in Japan on behalf of the Cabinet Office.

“This new fellowship program launched by the Stellar Science Foundation and the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Network aims to provide more opportunities to young researchers in Japan and the USA who are striving to shape the future of science and biomedicine,” said Takanori Takebe, Founder and Representative Director of the Stellar Science Foundation, who established his own lab in the United States as an early-career researcher. “Through this program, we hope to not only accelerate the advancement of researchers’ original ideas by maximizing their potential but also contribute to building an international research community. I am sincerely looking forward to seeing creative young researchers gain the challenging and growth opportunities that I experienced.”

Postdoctoral fellows from Japan will choose among a select set of world-class research labs affiliated with the CZ Biohub Network, through its partner universities. Each U.S.-based Global Science Scholar will hold dual appointments at the university of their matched postdoctoral advisor’s lab and that university’s associated CZ Biohub in San Francisco, Chicago, or New York. University partners include Stanford University; the University of California, Berkeley; the University of California, San Francisco; the University of Chicago; the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; Columbia University; and Yale University.

“We’ve already seen success with the CZ Biohub Network’s collaborative model of bringing together experts across scientific disciplines and institutions—incentivizing them to work together to make discoveries that wouldn’t otherwise be possible—and this new global fellowship expands on this success,” said Amy E. Herr, Vice President of the CZ Biohub Network. “Empowering rising science stars to work on international teams as Global Science Scholars builds an enduring global research community to tackle hard problems together for the benefit of humanity. Deeply understanding health and disease requires all of us to partner together, as such problems extend beyond national boundaries.” Read more from Stephen Quake, Amy E. Herr, and Takanori Takebe about the postdoctoral program.

After earning their doctoral degree from any U.S. institution, postdoctoral fellows from the U.S. will be placed with their choice of select world-class faculty at Japanese institutions such as the University of Tokyo, Kyoto University, Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, Osaka University, the Central Institute for Experimental Medicine and Life Science, the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, the National Center for Global Health and Medicine, the National Institute of Genetics, and RIKEN. The fellowships in Japan support the Japanese Cabinet Secretariat’s Global Startup Campus Initiative to foster the creation and growth of startups based on research and development.

In addition to research and professional development, participants will have access to mentorship and international networking opportunities, enabling knowledge exchange from a global perspective. Interested researchers can submit applications on a rolling basis until May 27, 2025 at 3 p.m. Pacific Time, or until all fellowships are allocated.

The CZ Biohub Network is a groundbreaking collaborative model for scientific research created and supported by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and consists of four scientific institutes in the U.S. The first CZ Biohub, in San Francisco, was founded to pursue scientific challenges in cell biology and infectious disease. The second CZ Biohub, in Chicago, is focused on creating new technologies to understand inflammation and the immune system, while the third CZ Biohub, in New York, will engineer immune cells for early disease prevention, detection, and treatment. The Chan Zuckerberg Institute for Advanced Biological Imaging, in Redwood City, Calif., develops technology to understand complex biological systems. Together, CZI and the CZ Biohub Network partner to develop science and technologies that help us understand how cells and tissues function to increase our understanding of human health and disease.

Since 2021, CZ Biohub San Francisco has sponsored a highly successful Collaborative Postdoctoral Fellowship Program in partnership with UC Berkeley, UC San Francisco, and Stanford University. The program, designed to support research that spans scientific disciplines, has so far enrolled eight trainees, who have published work in areas as diverse as molecular epidemiology of malaria; how cell size affects protein abundance, with implications for aging; a single-cell analysis of dengue virus infection that revealed immunological hallmarks of severe disease; and development of an organoid “printer” that enables high-throughput generation of these important research models.

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About the CZ Biohub Network
The Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Network is a group of nonprofit research institutes that bring together scientists, engineers, and physicians with the goal of pursuing grand scientific challenges on 10- to 15-year time horizons. The CZ Biohub Network focuses on understanding underlying mechanisms of disease and developing new technologies that will lead to actionable diagnostics and effective therapies. To learn more, visit www.czbiohub.org.

About Stellar Science Foundation
The Stellar Science Foundation (SS-F) is a Japan-based organization aiming to build mechanisms that promote the sustainable creation of disruptive discoveries and inventions by focusing on the power of the people who drive forward scientific discovery. We aim to contribute to society by promoting scientific research in Japan by supporting free research activities of scientists and generating world-changing discoveries and inventions. Guided by its philosophy of being “People-Centric”—Start with people, connect people, empower people—SS-F works to build an ecosystem where individual researchers can collaborate and connect across companies, organizations, and scientific disciplines. Through these efforts, SS-F strives to generate continuous breakthroughs and drive innovation. To learn more, visit ss-f.org/en.

About the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative
The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative was founded in 2015 to help solve some of society’s toughest challenges — from eradicating disease and improving education, to addressing the needs of our communities. Through collaboration, providing resources and building technology, our mission is to help build a more inclusive, just and healthy future for everyone. For more information, please visit chanzuckerberg.com.

Press Contact
Isabella Riezler, iriezler@chanzuckerberg.com