Home – Chicago Biomedical Consortium (CBC)

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The mission of the Chicago Biomedical Consortium (CBC) is to stimulate collaboration among scientists at Northwestern University, The University of Chicago, the University of Illinois Chicago and other Chicagoland institutions to accelerate discovery and expand the Chicago based life sciences ecosystem in order to transform life science research into biomedical applications, create Chicagoland opportunities for all, and improve the health of humankind.

The CBC gratefully acknowledges support from the Searle Funds at The Chicago Community Trust.

CBC Funding Programs

▸ Accelerator Award

The Accelerator Award is a milestone-driven award program (up to $250,000 in direct costs) focused on translational research toward therapeutics, or associated biomarker or molecular diagnostic innovations.

The Accelerator Award Letter of Intent (LOI) submission portal is OPEN;
LOI submission deadline is July 15, 2025.

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▸ To view slides in PDF format, Click HERE

▸ Entrepreneurial Fellows Award

The CBC Entrepreneurial Fellows (EF) Award program identifies and supports the professional development of junior life sciences researchers who are keen to develop the skills and experiences needed to move translational projects from a university lab toward commercialization and potentially into a Chicago-based biotech start-up. The program exposes Fellows to a breadth of real-world experiences across the CBC institutions and connects trainees to the Chicago biomedical community.

The CBC Entrepreneurial Fellows (EF) Award application submission portal is CLOSED. The application submission deadline was May 2, 2025.

Visit us regularly to see when the next round of application submissions will start!

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Meet our CBC Entrepreneurial Fellows HERE!

▸ CBC-HITES Award

CBC-HITES is a funding and analytics resource for academic researchers from nine Chicagoland institutions. Funding opportunities include Windy City Innovation Awards (up to $75K in direct costs) for projects that need an enabling experiment and CHI-Town Commercialization Awards (up to $250K in direct costs) for more progressed projects.

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