>>15061972 From second cap: "The work is based on a technique known as optogenetics, which uses proteins that change their function in response to light."
Search of National Science Foundation grants w/search term 'optogenetics': The majority of grants were awarded in California.
https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch
Search on HHS grants w/search term 'optogenetics' (2,330 results!): /simpleSearchResult?queryText=optogenetics
Picked a random HHS grant titled: A Novel Strategy for Combating Obesity: Reprogramming Neural Circuits
https://taggs.hhs.gov/Detail/AwardDetail?arg_AwardNum=DP2DK102256&arg_ProgOfficeCode=119
From the grant description: A successful outcome of this research would establish a new paradigm for the treatment for obesity, focusing on reprogramming the neural circuit perturbations that cause obesity, as opposed to treating the physical consequences of a neural circuit imbalance – an approach that could also be applied to other neuropsychiatric disorders including addiction, anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). This proposal is ideally suited for the New Innovator Award for the following reasons: First, the ultimate goal of this research is to lay the foundation for translating Neural Circuit Reprogramming to human patients. Second, the proposal is focused on technology development, delivering new technologies that will enable not state-identification and dynamic triggering used for Neural Circuit Reprogramming, and serve as springboards for other fields. Third, this proposal heavily leverages my unique background in sucrose-self administration, relapse, optogenetics, electrophysiology and imaging…."
Nothing like finding "neural reprogramming" and "human subjects" to get the blood pumping. Better than coffee.