QuSAFE challenge offers up to $7.1 million for quantum sensing

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) and NASA are offering up to $7.1 million in prizes through QuSAFE, a competition seeking quantum-enabled sensing for laboratory drug-safety models. The aim is to improve safety testing while reducing animal use.

The challenge targets in vitro models, which involve growing and testing cells outside the body. These include organoids—simplified, miniature, three-dimensional models that mimic aspects of an organ—and microphysiological systems. NASA says these models can generate human-relevant data for drug development and safety evaluation.

The measurement problems QuSAFE targets

NASA says conventional laboratory tests and imaging are often invasive, insufficiently sensitive or affected by noise—interference that obscures the signal being measured. Weak or early biological signals, including those present in very small amounts, can go undetected. Measurements that destroy the material being tested also make it difficult to follow changing biological processes over time.

The agency presents quantum-enabled sensing as a potential way to detect fainter signals, distinguish them more clearly from background noise and resolve detail at the nanoscale. These are capabilities the challenge seeks to advance, rather than results it has announced.

NASA says QuSAFE also supports the NASA Biological and Physical Sciences Division’s need for advanced detection methods that work beyond traditional laboratories, including research in space.

Prizes and submission dates

The $7.1 million is a prospective prize ceiling, not money already awarded. NASA’s announcement does not set out eligibility requirements or how prizes will be divided; it directs prospective entrants to the challenge website for registration, rules and eligibility.

NASA lists submissions as opening on 15 December 2026 and closing on 27 July 2027.