We are delighted to share that our lab has been awarded a 2026 Human Frontier Science Program (HFSP) Research Grant! The Human Frontier Science Program is one of the most prestigious international funding bodies in the life sciences, supporting bold, high-risk research that pushes the boundaries of our understanding of living systems. This year’s awards were selected from over 1,100 letters of intent Human Frontier Science Program, making this a highly competitive distinction. Our team (Co-PIs: Sha Liu, VIB-KU Leuven, Belgium, and Keith Hengen, Washington University in St. Louis, USA) brings together three laboratories across three continents in a new interdisciplinary collaboration. This grant will support three years of collaborative research at the frontier of spinal cord and sleep. By combining our complementary expertise in high-density neuronal recording from the spinal cord in awake-behaving (or sleeping) mice, cell types involved in sleep regulation, and a computational approach, we aim to determine whether the spinal cord also sleeps and whether this sleep supports motor learning. We are deeply grateful to HFSP for this support and excited for the discoveries this collaboration will bring. Stay tuned for updates as the project gets underway!