Two faculty members from the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) have been awarded Human Frontier Science Program (HFSP) Accelerator Grants 2026.
HFSP is an international program that supports innovative, high-risk research in the life sciences through global collaboration. This award will further strengthen international joint research projects involving OIST and help accelerate their development.
The HFSP Accelerator Grant is designed for international research teams that received an HFSP Research Grant in the previous year, enabling them to bring one additional collaborator into the project. Launched last year as a three-year pilot program, the scheme aims to foster bolder and more interdisciplinary research by introducing new expertise and perspectives.
Established in 1989, HFSP is widely recognized as one of the world’s leading basic research funding programs. To date, 31 HFSP awardees have gone on to receive Nobel Prizes.
Exploring how marine animals “see” the world
Professor Sam Reiter, who leads OIST’s Computational Neuroscience Unit, is participating in an international project focused on visual information processing in marine invertebrates, including cuttlefish, squid and annelid worms. These creatures possess visual systems that are fundamentally different from those of humans. Working with researchers in the United Kingdom and Sweden, this project aims to uncover how complex visual information is processed through convergent neural mechanisms in these animals, shedding light on how the ability to “see” has evolved. By investigating how organisms perceive their environment and translate sensory information into behavior, their research seeks to deepen our understanding of the biological foundations of perception and action.
Microbial clues to reducing greenhouse gases
OIST’s Marine Structural Biology Unit’s leader, Professor Oleg Sitsel, is involved in an international collaborative project focusing on methanotrophs — bacteria that consume methane from the environment as an energy source. They are particularly interested in a group known as atmospheric methane oxidizing bacteria (atmMOB), which can extract methane directly from the atmosphere. Methane is a greenhouse gas with a much stronger heat-trapping effect than carbon dioxide, and finding ways to utilize the activity of these bacteria has attracted growing attention in the context of climate change mitigation. In this project, researchers will use a state-of-the-art imaging technique, cryo-electron tomography, to observe the internal structure of these bacteria at the nanoscale. By closely examining how bacterial cellular organization changes in response to variations in methane concentration and temperature, the research aims to generate fundamental knowledge that could one day help curb climate change, which, among other effects, leads to destructive coral bleaching events that threaten the stability of marine ecosystems.
With the HFSP Accelerator Grant awards, OIST researchers will further expand their international collaborations, advancing research that ranges from fundamental questions in life science to urgent global challenges related to the Earth’s environment. By leveraging their respective expertise, these projects will continue to push the boundaries of interdisciplinary science on a global stage.
