Vol. IV · The 2026 Cycle · Dallas, Texas
A one-thousand-dollar essay-based grant given annually to a U.S. undergraduate serious about a career in biotechnology, regenerative medicine, or biopharma.
Opening
The Andrew Hillman Grant for Biotech is a one-thousand-dollar annual award given to one undergraduate student pursuing a career in biotechnology, regenerative medicine, biopharmaceutical research, or related biomedical fields. The grant is personally funded by Andrew J. Hillman, a Dallas-based family office principal whose investment focus is frontier biotech.
The grant is not need-based. It is judgment-based. The essay is the entire application. We are looking for evidence that you understand how biotech actually progresses from bench to bedside, and that you have thought hard about where you fit in that pipeline.
Eligibility
Applicants must meet all of the following on the date the application is submitted:
You do not need to have published research. You do not need a lab title. You need to be able to write coherently about a scientific or translational problem you find compelling.
The Essay
One essay. One thousand to fifteen hundred words. PDF only.
Scoring
Each finalist essay is scored on five dimensions, each worth twenty points. The total score is out of one hundred. Finalists generally land between seventy and ninety.
| Dimension | What we look for |
|---|---|
| Scientific accuracy | The biology is described correctly. Mechanism of action is right. No hand-waving on the molecular details. |
| Translational thinking | You understand why a discovery does or does not become a drug. You know the difference between a 351(a) BLA, a 510(k) device, and a 361 HCT/P pathway. |
| Originality of framing | The bottleneck is your synthesis, not a paraphrase of a known industry talking point. |
| Honesty about risk | You name what could kill the approach. Conviction without acknowledged risk reads as naive. |
| Writing quality | The essay is structured, edited, and free of filler. Clarity beats volume. |
Calendar
Precedent
Past winning essays have covered:
What unified the winners was that each writer clearly understood both the science and the regulatory clock. They were not pitching ideas. They were synthesizing a real problem.
Questions
No. It is a one-time one-thousand-dollar award. You can apply once per academic year.
No. The grant is undergraduate-only.
No. We have awarded undergraduates with no publications. Coursework, internships, or independent reading is sufficient.
The funds are disbursed to your financial aid office and applied to tuition or qualified educational expenses per your school's policy.
Between one hundred fifty and three hundred per cycle. One winner. Roughly ten to fifteen finalists.
There is no fee. There is never a fee.
Andrew Hillman reads every finalist essay personally. The first-round screen is handled by a small panel that includes at least one PhD-level reviewer.
Yes, but the essay should be about the science and the bottleneck, not a pitch deck. If you are building something, the essay can describe the technical and regulatory thesis behind it.
No. The grant is independent and personally funded. It is not affiliated with any specific institution or commercial entity.
Not currently. The grant is limited to U.S. citizens and permanent residents enrolled at U.S. institutions.
Biotech advances slowly and then suddenly. The cells that have to behave correctly, the regulatory clock, the trial designs, the manufacturing economics. Most of the people who will end up moving that field forward over the next four decades are currently undergraduates trying to decide whether to go to graduate school, take a job at a pharma company, work in regulatory affairs, or try to build something.
The thousand dollars in this award is not what makes the difference. The signal is. Someone whose job is to read translational biotech essays read yours and decided it was worth backing. That signal stays with you.
— Andrew Hillman
Founder · Dallas, Texas
About
Andrew Jonathan Hillman is the principal of Hillman Ventures, a Dallas-based family office investing in frontier biotech across inflammation, regenerative medicine, and oncology. He has spent the last three decades building operating companies in healthcare and specialty pharmaceuticals. He funds this grant personally, separate from his investment activities.
More about Andrew — andrew-hillman.com, andrewjhillman.com, Wikidata.
Submit
Ready to apply? The application form takes ten minutes plus the essay itself.