Job Research Foundation Research Grants 2027: Two $200,000 Two-Year Awards for Scientists Working on Job Syndrome (STAT3 Hyper-IgE Syndrome) — Applications Close 16 October 2026

Job Research Foundation Research Grants 2027: Two $200,000 Two-Year Awards for Scientists Working on Job Syndrome (STAT3 Hyper-IgE Syndrome) — Applications Close 16 October 2026

Job Syndrome is rare enough that most physicians will never see a case, and rare enough that no pharmaceutical company has built a development programme around it. That gap is exactly what the Job Research Foundation exists to fill. On 10 July 2026 the Foundation announced its ninth round of funding: up to two grants of $200,000 each, spread over two years, for scientific research into the causes of and treatments for Job Syndrome. Applications are due by 16 October 2026, and the Foundation expects to announce awardees in January 2027.

This is a small, focused, disease-specific funder rather than a general biomedical agency. That shapes everything about how you should approach it — what counts as a strong proposal, how much preliminary data you need, and how directly your work has to connect to patients living with the disease today.

Key Details at a Glance

What the Disease Is and Why This Funding Exists

Job Syndrome — also called Autosomal Dominant Hyperimmunoglobulin E Syndrome (AD-HIES), and increasingly referred to in the literature as STAT3 dominant-negative hyper-IgE syndrome — was first described in 1966. It is a multisystem primary immunodeficiency. Patients live with recurrent staphylococcal infections, skin and lung disease, connective tissue and skeletal features, and dramatically elevated serum IgE. The pulmonary consequences are among the most serious: repeated pneumonias can leave structural lung damage, including pneumatoceles and bronchiectasis, that becomes its own long-term clinical problem independent of the underlying immune defect.

Because the disease affects a very small number of people worldwide, it sits in the funding shadow that catches most rare conditions. Investigator-initiated work depends heavily on disease-specific philanthropy, and the Job Research Foundation is one of the very few sources dedicated to this particular disorder. The Foundation states its aim plainly: better therapies and treatments for people living with the disease now, while working toward a cure.

The Foundation has been funding since 2019 and reports 17 funded projects worldwide to date. The recipient history is a useful signal of what actually gets money. Past awards have gone to work on STAT3 regulation and the mechanisms of dominance, Staphylococcus aureus infection biology, JAK inhibition for pulmonary complications, airway epithelial differentiation and defence, quality-of-life and health-status assessment in patients, hematopoietic stem cell transplantation and international BMT experience, genome editing in stem cells, CRISPR base editing approaches, and fibroblast STAT3 in lung disease. Institutions have included the Garvan Institute in Australia, Helmholtz Zentrum München and the University of Freiburg in Germany, Hospital Infantil Universitario Virgen del Rocío in Spain, Rockefeller University, Massachusetts General Hospital, the University of Pennsylvania, Boston Children’s Hospital, Columbia, NIAID, Mount Sinai, the University of Newcastle in the UK, and Aarhus University in Denmark.

Two things stand out from that list. First, this is genuinely an international programme — the money has repeatedly gone outside the United States. Second, the Foundation funds across a wide methodological range, from bench genome editing to patient-reported outcomes and transplant outcomes research. A well-argued clinical or quality-of-life study is not out of scope here in the way it might be at a purely mechanistic funder.

What the Award Covers and What It Does Not

The award is up to $200,000 over two years. Up to two such grants will be made in this round, meaning the round tops out at roughly $400,000 in total — consistent with the Foundation’s practice in earlier cycles.

The restrictions on use of funds are specific and worth reading before you build the budget:

• Funds cannot be allocated entirely to salary or laboratory support. The Foundation is buying research activity, not backfilling a payroll line. A budget that is 100 percent personnel will read as a mismatch.
• Travel expenses are not eligible unless prior written approval is provided. Do not assume conference travel or site visits are covered. If travel is genuinely necessary — for example, to collect samples from a patient cohort at another centre — raise it with the Foundation rather than quietly including it.
• Expenses incurred before the grant is received cannot be covered without approval. Pre-award spending needs prior written sign-off.

The Foundation’s non-discrimination policy also applies at the organisational level: it states it will not consider grant inquiries from organizations that discriminate on the basis of race, gender, religion, ethnicity or sexual orientation.

Who Should Apply

The application process is open to researchers worldwide. Beyond that, the Foundation is explicit on two points that matter to people who have tried before:

• Previous applicants are encouraged to reapply. An unsuccessful application in an earlier round is not a bar, and given how few projects are funded per cycle, a good proposal can simply have been crowded out.
• Applicants may collaborate with other institutions. Multi-site proposals are welcome. For a disease this rare, that is not merely permitted — it is often the only way to reach a meaningful sample size.

The requirement for a Primary Mentor Biographical Sketch signals that the Foundation expects and supports applications from investigators who are still working under a mentor, including fellows and junior faculty. If you are already fully independent, address this requirement directly rather than silently omitting it — say who is providing senior scientific oversight for the project, or explain your independent status.

The strongest fit is a researcher who can show a credible, specific route from their work to something a Job Syndrome patient or their clinician would notice. That could be a therapeutic mechanism, a corrective genetic approach, an infection-control strategy, a way of preventing or managing lung damage, or better evidence about how a given intervention actually affects patients’ lives.

Required Application Materials

The Foundation asks for a defined set of documents. Assemble all of them before you write anything at length, because the page limits are tight and they force choices about what to include.

1. Personal statement, maximum one page. Your training background and your clinical and research interests. One page is short. Use it to establish why you specifically are the person to run this project, not to restate your CV.
2. Detailed research proposal. Specific aims, background, methodology, purpose, and goals. Supplemental tables and figures are permitted. No page limit is stated for this section, but a disciplined proposal that a non-specialist board member can follow will do better than an exhaustive one.
3. Budget and justification, maximum two pages. A detailed breakdown is required. Two pages is enough to be genuinely specific; use it.
4. Curriculum vitae or biosketch. Current, highlighting relevant experience, with publications listed by relevance rather than simply chronologically. That instruction is a real one — a reviewer scanning your first five listed papers should see Job Syndrome, STAT3, primary immunodeficiency, or the specific technique your aims depend on.
5. Primary mentor biographical sketch, following NIH format guidelines.
6. IRB or IACUC documentation. Evidence of a plan to obtain institutional approval for research involving human subjects or animals. You do not need approval already in hand at submission, but you do need to show a credible plan and timeline.

All materials go by email to [email protected]. This is a manual, email-based submission — there is no portal queue to hide behind, so send well before the deadline and ask for confirmation of receipt.

Timeline

Secondary listings have described the Scientific Advisory Board review as taking place in November 2026 and the recipient announcement as falling between December 2026 and January 2027. The Foundation’s own announcement gives January 2027 as the announcement point; treat the intermediate dates as approximate. Plan your project start for early-to-mid 2027 rather than January.

Reporting and Grantee Obligations

These are worth knowing before you apply, because they affect how you should design a two-year project:

• A six-month check-in meeting is required.
• An annual written report is due in December.
• Grantees must present at a board meeting, in person or by teleconference.
• Publication notifications must be submitted to the Foundation.

The practical implication is that your project needs something reportable at the six-month mark. A design where nothing is observable until month twenty will make those check-ins uncomfortable and is a weaker proposal for it. Build in an early milestone — a validated assay, a completed cohort recruitment, a first editing efficiency readout — that you can genuinely show.

How to Make the Proposal Competitive

Anchor the work in Job Syndrome specifically. A general STAT3 biology project with a paragraph about hyper-IgE bolted on is the most common way to lose here. The Foundation funds Job Syndrome research. Every aim should trace back to it.

Take the pulmonary preference seriously. The Foundation has stated a preference for work on pulmonary complications and related therapies, and its funding history bears that out — JAK inhibition for lung disease, airway epithelial defence, fibroblast STAT3 in pulmonary complications, alveolar function. If your work touches the lung phenotype, foreground it. If it does not, make the connection to patient outcomes explicit in some other concrete way.

Solve the sample size problem out loud. Reviewers who work on this disease know exactly how hard patient recruitment is. A proposal that names the cohorts, registries, or collaborating centres it will draw on is far more convincing than one that asserts feasibility. If you need partners, the Foundation’s own grant recipient directory is a reasonable place to identify groups already working in the space.

Write for a mixed audience. The advisory board includes senior clinician-scientists in allergy and immunology — Dr. Joshua Milner of Columbia University Irving Medical Center is listed among them — but a disease foundation board also includes people whose expertise is the patient experience rather than the molecular biology. Your specific aims and your significance section should be readable by both.

Make the budget match the restrictions. Given that funds cannot go entirely to salary and laboratory support, show reagents, sequencing, animal costs, core facility charges, or patient-facing study costs as real line items with justification. A vague budget in a two-page allowance is a missed opportunity.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

• Ignoring the one-page limit on the personal statement or the two-page limit on the budget. These are the two stated limits in the guidance. Exceeding them signals you did not read the instructions.
• Listing publications chronologically. The guidance asks for relevance ordering. It is a small thing that takes ten minutes and visibly improves how your expertise reads.
• Omitting the mentor biosketch without explanation. If it does not apply to you, say so and say who provides senior oversight instead.
• Burying ethics approval. State plainly whether human subjects or animals are involved, what approval is needed, from which committee, and when you expect it.
• Budgeting travel as if it were routine. It requires prior written approval. Do not assume.
• Submitting on the last day. This is an email submission to a small organisation. Leave time to confirm receipt and resend if something bounces.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I apply from outside the United States? Yes. The application process is open to researchers worldwide, and the Foundation has repeatedly funded groups in Australia, Germany, Spain, the UK, and Denmark.

Can two institutions apply together? Yes. Applicants may collaborate with other institutions.

I applied in an earlier round and was not funded. Should I try again? The Foundation explicitly encourages previous applicants to reapply.

How many grants will be awarded? Up to two, at up to $200,000 each, over a two-year period.

Does my project have to be about the lungs? No, but pulmonary complications and related therapies are a stated preference, and the funding history reflects that.

Do I need IRB or IACUC approval before I submit? The requirement is evidence of a plan to obtain institutional approval — not approval already granted at the time of submission.

Can the whole grant pay salaries? No. Funds cannot be allocated entirely to salary or laboratory support.

When will I hear back? Awardees are expected to be announced in January 2027.

Official Links and Next Steps

• Grant proposal application and requirements: https://www.jobresearchfoundation.org/grant-proposal-application
• Job Research Foundation homepage: https://www.jobresearchfoundation.org/
• Past grant recipients and funded projects: https://www.jobresearchfoundation.org/grant-recipients
• Background on the disease: https://www.jobresearchfoundation.org/about-job-syndrome
• Email for submissions and questions: [email protected]
• Phone: (215) 285-8997

If you are considering applying, the sequence that works best is: read the recipient directory first to see what has already been funded and by whom, then confirm your patient or sample access, then draft the specific aims and send a short query email to the Foundation to check fit before you invest in the full package. With up to two awards available and a worldwide applicant pool, a ten-minute fit check is time well spent.

Details on this page are drawn from the Job Research Foundation’s own announcement of 10 July 2026 and its published grant proposal application requirements. Always confirm the deadline, materials list, and any restrictions directly with the Foundation before submitting.