The conference includes two days of presentations by leading experts on infectious diseases, as well as poster sessions and hands-on workshops focusing on modeling and analysis of ecological and evolutionary processes affecting infectious disease dynamics.
All registrations must be received by May 14, 2013.
More information is available on the 2013 EEID Conference website.
The event is also posted on the Huck Institutes events calendar, with iCal and vCal files available for download.
]]>From the pool of concept papers submitted, a team comprising Institute directors, Research deans, the Vice President for Research, and the Office of Corporate and Foundation Relations will select up to four papers per program that are sufficiently developed and consistent with the Keck Foundation's funding priorities.
These papers will be discussed with the Keck Foundation's program staff in order to gather feedback on each project's aims, methodologies, impacts, and rationale for support.
The Keck Foundation will not identify which projects they wish to see at the Phase I stage, but historically their feedback has clearly identified the best-suited projects for each cycle.
Competitive projects typically exhibit the following characteristics:
Both Senior and Early Career investigators are encouraged to apply, and collaborations involving both are viewed favorably by Keck program staff
Funding requests are capped at $1,000,000 for projects of three years duration or less, and there are strict requirements for institutional matching funds.
There are two submission cycles (May and November) each year for each of the two program areas — Medical Research and Science and Engineering— in which Penn State is eligible to submit.
The submission process is multi-staged, comprising the following:
| Pre-application counseling | Phase I application deadline | Notification of invitation to submit full proposal | Full proposal deadline |
|---|---|---|---|
| January 15-February 15, 2013 |
May 1, 2013 |
July 15, 2013 |
August 23, 2013 |
For consideration during the upcoming cycle, the internal deadline for submission of one-page concept papers is January 15, 2013.
Feedback on the concept papers will be received from the Keck Foundation's program staff by February 15, 2013, and the projects identified for Phase I submission will be due May 1, 2013.
Please note: Penn State is eligible to submit only one Phase I application per program during each cycle.
If you have a potential project that meets the Keck Foundation's high-risk and transformative basic research criteria, and would like to develop this project further, please contact the appropriate individual listed below.
This seed money is designed to allow investigators to generate preliminary data for grant proposals, or to explore how their research can benefit from utilizing the expertise and equipment in the various Shared Technology Facilities.
Research will be conducted at the Microscopy and Cytometry Facility
Research will be conducted at the Microscopy and Cytometry Facility
Research will be conducted at the Genomics Core Facility
Research will be conducted at the Metabolomics Core Facility
Research will be conducted at the Genomics Core Facility
Research will be conducted at the Proteomics and Mass Spectrometry Facility, the X-Ray Crystallography Facility, and the Automated Biological Calorimetry Facility
Research will be conducted at the Genomics Core Facility
Research will be conducted at the Proteomics and Mass Spectrometry Facility and the X-Ray Crystallography Facility
Research will be conducted at the Microscopy and Cytometry Facility
Research will be conducted at the Microscopy and Cytometry Facility
Research will be conducted at the Genomics Core Facility
Research will be conducted at the High Field Magnetic Resonance Imaging Facility
Research will be conducted at the Proteomics and Mass Spectrometry Facility
Research will be conducted at the Genomics Core Facility
Research will be conducted at the Microscopy and Cytometry Facility and the Genomics Core Facility
Research will be conducted at the Metabolomics Core Facility
Research will be conducted at the Microscopy and Cytometry Facility and the Genomics Core Facility
Research will be conducted at the Microscopy and Cytometry Facility and the Genomics Core Facility
Research will be conducted at the Microscopy and Cytometry Facility and the Genomics Core Facility
Research will be conducted at the Proteomics and Mass Spectrometry Facility
These awards are provided through a combination of funds from the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences and the Penn State Clinical and Translational Science Institute.
]]>The Huck Institutes support research through the Shared Technology Facilities at University Park, including the following:
This program will allocate up to $10,000 of seed money per proposal to Penn State researchers for use in any of the Huck Institutes Shared Technology Facilities at University Park.
The award will be in the form of a credit against which work can be billed at currently approved use rates.
This seed money is designed to allow investigators to generate preliminary data for grant proposals, or to explore how their research can benefit from utilizing the expertise and equipment in the various Shared Technology Facilities.
Proposals from new users are particularly encouraged.
Principal investigators are strongly encouraged to visit the facility or facilities they wish to use, and to discuss their aims with the appropriate facility director(s) prior to submission.
Proposals will be reviewed and prioritized by a review committee comprising the directors of the Huck Institutes Shared Technology Facilities.
For consideration in this round of proposals, principal investigators should electronically submit a one page proposal with the following information to HuckCoreFacilities@psu.edu by October 1, 2012:
Any additional questions should be directed to Nigel Deighton.
]]>John Snow was an independent-thinking physician who pre-empted the germ theory of disease and stopped the 1854 major cholera epidemic in London by simply removing the handle of the water pump on Broad Street.
His observations at the time led him to dismiss the dogma and the theory of foul air or Miasma theory and to take simple-but-effective steps to stop transmission.
This interactive series of seminars and discussions honors the memory of John Snow and embraces a fresh, broader view of biomedical sciences.
This is not simply a lecture, but an open forum to talk about broader issues in the biomedical arena with the idea of stimulating new thinking and approaches to issues of the day in the same vein as John Snow.
The guests of honor will be the inaugural cohort of third-year medical students from the Penn State College of Medicine, who will be receiving their clinical training at the University Park Regional Medical Campus and Mount Nittany Medical Center over the next two years.
We shall start each seminar with a short medical introduction, and then follow this up with a featured speaker giving a 20-30 minute lecture on the issue.
After this there will be some formal discussion followed by an open informal discussion on the Willaman Bridge (3rd floor between Life Sciences and Chemistry Buildings) with some hors d’oeuvres and soft drinks.
All are welcome — the lectures will be held on the first Thursday of each month at 5:15pm.
The time is specifically selected to allow the medical students to attend.
Bring your brain and come join in!
This latest effort to catalyze excellence in life science research at Penn State was met with overwhelming response from researchers applying to receive funding for a wide variety of novel projects — the majority of them interdisciplinary collaborations considered too risky for traditional funding from sources such as the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
"History shows us that to do great science often requires seed funding that allows you to break the mold and try a crazy idea," says Huck Institutes director Peter Hudson. "We wanted to fund projects that were too innovative or risky to attract conventional funding but would transform a field — with the expectation that conventional grant agencies would scramble to catch up if the idea pans out; these are high-risk/high-payoff proposals."
Vivek Kapur, associate director for strategic initiatives at the Huck Institutes, adds: "The HITS initiative is designed to encourage outside-the-box thinking. The Huck Institutes are developing Penn State's leadership in strategic areas in the life sciences, and the HITS initiative is specifically designed to encourage transformative research with significant potential for impact, and to provide an opportunity for our outstanding faculty to seek novel solutions to currently unaddressed areas or seemingly intractable problems."
Andrew Read, director of the Huck Institutes' Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics and another central figure in the HITS funding scheme, elaborates further: "NSF/NIH have had to set their own schemes up to drive exciting science because their standard funding schemes fund science that is risk-free. Our challenge is to unleash faculty imaginations and ambition, and in order to do this we need to empower more of our faculty to think beyond what's safe. To be outstanding, we need to be supporting great unconventional grants. That's the aim of HITS, and I'm very optimistic for the future"
Once the awards have been distributed and the projects initiated, investigators will be asked to provide interim project updates, and projects will continue to receive support based on their progress toward achieving specific milestones.
Additional funding cycles are in the works and, depending on availability of funds, the initiative is expected to continue into the foreseeable future.
Dr. Hudson stresses: "We are keen to find new ways of funding novel research proposals. Although not all projects will fit our criteria for HITS funding, most of the proposals we've seen have been excellent — and those that have not been awarded HITS funding are still perfectly suitable for funding from other sources such as the Keck Foundation or even NSF/NIH. We want anyone with a great, unconventional idea to feel free to come talk with us about developing a unique funding strategy for their project."
Researchers are encouraged to contact Vivek Kapur or Peter Hudson to discuss possible funding strategies for unconventional, high-risk/high-reward projects.
Congratulations to the following faculty members, whose projects have been selected to receive the inaugural round of HITS funding:
| Pre-application counseling | Phase I application deadline | Notification of invitation to submit full proposal | Full proposal deadline |
|---|---|---|---|
| January 1-February 15, 2012 |
May 1, 2012 |
July 15, 2012 |
August 23, 2012 |
The process is extremely competitive, particularly during the pre-application counseling phase.
Reviewers at the Huck Institutes submitted eight concept papers to the Keck Foundation for feedback during the pre-application counseling phase, and based on that feedback selected two concept papers for Phase I submission.
On July 15, the authors of those papers will be notified whether they have been invited to submit their full proposals, and of the several hundred accepted by the Keck Foundation, roughly twenty will be chosen for final review with about ten proposals ultimately being funded.
Researchers are encouraged to begin working on their concept papers in preparation for the next submission cycle, outlined below.
Please note: the internal submission deadline for the upcoming cycle is July 15, 2012.
Feedback on the concept papers will be received back by the Keck Foundation by August 15, 2012 and the projects identified for Phase I submission will be due November 1, 2012.
| Pre-application counseling | Phase I application deadline | Notification of invitation to submit full proposal | Full proposal deadline |
|---|---|---|---|
| July 1-August 15, 2012 |
November 1, 2012 |
January 15, 2013 |
February 15, 2013 |
Researchers are reminded that proposals not selected for submission to the Keck Foundation may be funded from other sources.
Informational meetings will likely be scheduled at a future date, still to be determined, and will be publicized through the Huck Institutes website.
The initiative is open to faculty at University Park and Hershey, and is being coordinated through the University Park campus.
Interested faculty should contact the person listed below for their respective campuses.
The Secretary stated, "The 150th anniversary of the Department of Agriculture is an important time to reflect on the invaluable partnerships we have with land-grant institutions across the country,"adding that "investments in research taking place at land-grant universities [are] vital to America so we can out-innovate, out-educate and out-build the rest of the world."
Secretary Vilsack also stressed the greater role of agriculture in the United States and globally:
"The economy of the country, the ability of farm families to survive, the capacity of this country to have a national security advantage because of our productivity, our less reliance on foreign oil and greater reliance on our own resources to produce energy, the capacity for us to have safe food and healthy people, and the ability to have a safe nation and a safe world — all tie to agriculture."
Vivek Kapur, the Huck Institutes' Associate Director for Strategic Initiatives, articulated the Institutes' goal of facilitating interdisciplinary research at Penn State, and highlighted the tremendous synergies and new opportunities that have been created by co-locating faculty and students who share research interests but hail from different colleges — including the College of Agricultural Sciences — in the new Millennium Science Complex.
"Investments in research taking place at land-grant universities [are] vital to America so we can out-innovate, out-educate and out-build the rest of the world."
Andrew Read, Director of the Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics, who led the Secretary's tour of the Millennium Science Complex, and Dr. Kapur — both of whom have appointments in the College of Agricultural Sciences — shared how faculty and students are working across disciplines on major problems that impact agriculture and human health, and how their research is being enabled by access to shared flexible space and state-of-the-art facilities such as the Millennium Science Complex.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture works closely with Penn State — which is currently leading more than 65 active USDA research grants totaling more than $30 million.
This includes a grant from USDA's National Institute of Food and Agriculture for more than $2 million, awarded in 2011, to establish a nationwide network for monitoring and maintaining honey bee health and pollinator services called the Bee Informed Platform, and a 2011 grant for nearly $5 million to evaluate regional food systems in the Northeast and enhance food security of underserved populations in the region.
Additionally, Penn State is home to the USDA Agricultural Research Service's Pasture Systems and Watershed Management Research Laboratory, which serves as a focal point for basic research and problem solving establishing and managing grazing lands and developing management practices and strategies that balance agricultural production and protection of the environment.
Today, the U.S. Department of Agriculture partners with more than 100 state colleges and universities who in turn have graduated more than 20 million students; produced countless scientific breakthroughs; vastly increased agricultural productivity; and improved the lives of people everywhere.
The Morrill Act of 1862 formed the basis for the land-grant university system, a historic partnership between States and the Federal government that fosters collaborative research and education efforts in order to solve our planet's most critical challenges.
Additionally, through the Cooperative Extension Service, land-grant universities such as Penn State help transfer knowledge from university research to the communities where it can be applied and benefit the American people.
In 2009, Dow launched the Sustainability Innovation Student Challenge Award (SISCA) program, which is designed to promote forward thinking in social and environmental responsibility, and acknowledges the energy, commitment and enthusiasm of students and their professors who support their innovations.
As part of the SISCA program, winning students have the opportunity to network with global sustainability thought leaders and peers, receive monetary prizes (Grand Prize is $10,000 and a runner-up is awarded $2,500), join a network of SISCA alumni, and showcase their work with various external sustainability media.
The winners are selected based on high-level criteria including: potential for solving world challenges in alignment with Dow’s 2015 Sustainability Goals, innovative thinking and excellence in research, and high level of interdisciplinary work.
SISCA has recognized winning concepts such as a water wheel allowing easier and faster transportation of potable water in underdeveloped nations.
Dr. David Riley, Executive Director of the Center for Sustainability, stated, “The Dow SISCA program recognizes some very important skill sets and attributes of interdisciplinary problem solving and teamwork. We are honored to be included in this prestigious set of internationally renowned universities that have the privilege of participating.”
The 2012 SISCA program will run from April to December 2012, ending with an online collaboration event for student winners.
Hank Foley, Vice-President for Research at Penn State and Dean of the Graduate School, stated, “We are delighted to have the opportunity to participate in SISCA. This unique program will enable us to recognize some of the most creative and talented graduate students at Penn State who are pursuing sustainable solutions to the critical problems facing our global community.”
Participating universities are selected based on their academic excellence and a commitment to sustainability.
The nine new universities are:
The following universities are returning for the 2012 program:
An informational session will be held at 117 Auditorium in the HUB-Robeson Center on April 30th from 4:30-5:30pm.
This session is for graduate students and faculty, and will be used to discuss Penn State’s approach and to formulate ideas about how to form successful teams.
We expect high risk, but if the project works, a very high return.
We don’t require preliminary data or evidence of previous collaboration, and we definitely do not want to see proposals that are transitional, incremental, built on current research programs, or seeking to bridge potential funding shortfalls in otherwise strong programs.
We are looking for ideas too innovative or risky to attract conventional NIH or NSF funding at the current time, but with the expectation that conventional grant agencies would scramble to catch up if your idea pans out.
There is no upper limit to what you may request in funding, but requested funds should be justified to be cost-efficient and commensurate with potential for high impact or return.
You may also request two-stage funding, with pilot funding followed by proof of concept.
A panel of reviewers will rank the most exciting ideas and then decide what level of funding would be appropriate.
Successful projects may be funded in full or in part, and project modifications may be requested based on review and feedback.
Proposals can be in any area of life sciences — including genomics, infectious disease, plant sciences, neuroscience, metabolomics, food and health, and biomedical research — or at the intersection of life sciences and other strengths at the University, notably materials science, cyberscience, social science, and environmental science.
Proposals should be no more than two (2) pages of text, and should include the following components:
Applications should be submitted to Megan Matthews by May 1st, 2012.
Decisions will be made and feedback provided within 4 weeks.
]]>We expect high risk, but if the project works, a very high return.
We don’t require preliminary data or evidence of previous collaboration, and we definitely do not want to see proposals that are transitional, incremental, built on current research programs, or seeking to bridge potential funding shortfalls in otherwise strong programs.
We are looking for ideas too innovative or risky to attract conventional NIH or NSF funding at the current time, but with the expectation that conventional grant agencies would scramble to catch up if your idea pans out.
There is no upper limit to what you may request in funding, but requested funds should be justified to be cost-efficient and commensurate with potential for high impact or return.
You may also request two-stage funding, with pilot funding followed by proof of concept.
A panel of reviewers will rank the most exciting ideas and then decide what level of funding would be appropriate.
Successful projects may be funded in full or in part, and project modifications may be requested based on review and feedback.
Proposals can be in any area of life sciences — including genomics, infectious disease, plant sciences, neuroscience, metabolomics, food and health, and biomedical research — or at the intersection of life sciences and other strengths at the University, notably materials science, cyberscience, social science, and environmental science.
Proposals should be no more than two (2) pages of text, and should include the following components:
Robert Paulson — associate professor of veterinary and biomedical sciences, chair of the Huck Institutes' intercollege graduate degree program in genetics, a researcher in the Center for Molecular Immunology and Infectious Disease, and a co-founded faculty member of the Huck Institutes' graduate programs in cell and developmental biology, immunology and infectious diseases, and molecular medicine — is studying the stem cells that cause leukemia.
Sandeep Prabhu — associate professor of immunology and molecular toxicology in the Department of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences, a researcher in the Center for Molecular Immunology and Infectious Disease, and a co-funded faculty member of the Huck Institutes' graduate programs in immunology and infectious diseases, molecular medicine, and molecular toxicology — specializes in the health benefits of fish oil.
The two researchers connected their seemingly separate study areas during a weekly open faculty luncheon sponsored by the Huck Institutes' Center for Molecular Immunology and Infectious Disease.
A possible cure for leukemia.
]]>Current leukemia treatments cannot cure the disease because they do not target the stem cells that actively propagate the cancer.
But after mice with CML were injected with roughly 600 nanograms of D12-PGJ3 each day for a week, tests showed that they were completely cured without relapse.
The two doctors realized their common interest at a weekly open faculty luncheon sponsored by the Huck Institutes’ Center for Molecular Immunology and Infectious Diseases.
Dr. Prabhu’s discussion of his research on the health benefits of fish oil sparked Dr. Paulson’s recollection of a study on leukemia treatment that mentioned a compound also being researched by Dr. Prabhu — 15-deoxy-Delta-12, 14-prostaglandin J2 (15d-PGJ2).
After the luncheon, the two struck up a conversation and decided to investigate the idea further, eventually coming to focus on the similar compound D12-PGJ3, which had less side effects and had been used to kill stem cells of Friend Virus-induced leukemia — an experimental model for human leukemia.
The researchers are now preparing to conduct human trials while determining whether D12-PGJ3 can be used to treat the terminal “Blast Crisis” stage of CML, which is currently untreatable.
The study has been published in Blood, and the two doctors have applied for a patent on their work.
Dr. Prabhu is an assistant professor of veterinary and biomedical sciences at Penn State, a researcher in the Center for Molecular Immunology and Infectious Disease, and is a co-funded faculty member of the Huck Institutes’ graduate programs in immunology and infectious diseases, molecular medicine, and molecular toxicology.
Dr. Paulson is an associate professor of veterinary science at Penn State, chair of the Huck Institutes’ intercollege graduate degree program in genetics, a researcher in the Center for Molecular Immunology and Infectious Disease, and is a co-founded faculty member of the Huck Institutes’ graduate programs in cell and developmental biology, immunology and infectious diseases, and molecular medicine.
On the heels of one of the first workshops to be held in the new Millennium Science Complex – a well-attended and highly successful forum focusing on recent developments in data science and epidemiology – Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics (CIDD) faculty researcher and workshop organizer Dr. Marcel Salathé has published a paper in PLoS Computational Biology that is indicative of the new frontiers being explored by infectious disease specialists nationwide and around the world.
Dr. Salathé’s study, which used Twitter to track vaccine sentiments and assess impact on outbreak risk, was co-authored by software developer Shashank Khandelwal, who wrote the algorithm responsible for analyzing and sorting the nearly half-million data points.
A ten percent “training” set of data – analyzed by dozens of Penn State students – provided the basis for the algorithm, which catalogued the remaining 90 percent based on response and location; the resultant patterns were compared to data provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on vaccination rates, creating a map of public sentiment regarding vaccination.
In addition, Salathé’s and Khandelwal’s map includes the relationship of each data point to the others, which allows for analysis of what Salathé calls “echo chambers” – communities of like-minded individuals within the broader social network – and how these communities influence the end results.
"This is the first time in history when we have had the ability to tune in to the thoughts and actions of millions of people at the same time. It's mind-boggling to think of the enormous amounts of data from completely novel sources and the profound insights we can gain from them," he said.
"Twitter was merely an idea five years ago, and it's now generating 250 million public messages every single day. Twitter might not be around anymore in five years time, but something else will - something that someone is inventing in a garage or a dorm room right now," Salathé added, concluding,
"The whole field is moving so fast, you have to keep running just to stay in the same place, and the research institutions that will be the leaders in this field are the ones who are already on their way."
That ideas and approaches like Dr. Salathé's are catching on in the larger community of infectious disease researchers was evident in the data science workshop, where topics of discussion ranged from geovisual analytics and spatial disease dynamics to digital disease detection, public health surveillance and the dynamics of behavior spread in social networks; notably, speakers and attendees came from the
And while the most noticeable trend may be the collection and generation of unprecedented quantities of data, perhaps no less important is the fact that they capture peoples’ beliefs and corresponding actions with regard to specific issues.
Given the advances in computational power that have made analyzing these data possible, Dr. Andrew Read, director of the Institute for Infectious Disease Dynamics, believes that the main challenge has become one of creativity.
“We need to let our imaginations run with what might be possible, and what we might learn. This will run the gamut from surveillance for rare diseases, [and] real-time monitoring of outbreaks, [to] estimations of disease-affecting human behaviors, and opinions [regarding] vaccines," he said, adding finally,
"I get the feeling that we are really on the edge of a complete revolution in how we do this kind of science. It is like being at the start of the genomics era. [We’re] not sure where it’s going, but it sure is coming and it sure will be exciting.”
As the fields of research and industry grow ever closer to one another, strategic initiatives focusing on developing and funding translational research are becoming increasingly important to the institutions driving scientific progress, and interdisciplinary approaches are widely recognized as being essential to solving science’s biggest problems and addressing society’s most pressing needs.
Scientists with training in engineering, cyber- and computational sciences, materials research and the social sciences often hold the keys that life scientists need to propel their fields forward.
With an entrepreneurial background spanning both research and business, Dr. Kapur knows firsthand the significance of developing innovative interdisciplinary approaches to science, the necessity of building bridges between research and industry, and the complexities inherent in pushing the envelope of the life sciences in academia – embodying a unique understanding of these issues that is immediately evident in conversation.
Although his role is new to the Huck Institutes, it is not altogether unfamiliar territory to Dr. Kapur as he begins his work of furthering the Institutes’ mission to catalyze and facilitate excellence in interdisciplinary life science research and education at Penn State.
Prior to coming to Penn State, Dr. Kapur – a veterinarian by training – was a professor of microbiology at the University of Minnesota Medical School and was also the director of the University’s Biomedical Genomics Center, where he helped to develop productive partnerships with other prominent institutions – including the Mayo Clinic – and was part of a consortium that worked to integrate life science research with the study of law, ethics and the social sciences.
As an outgrowth of his interest in translational research, Dr. Kapur also helped to start several successful biotechnology companies during his tenure at the University of Minnesota.
Since returning four years ago to Penn State – his alma mater – as a professor of microbiology and infectious diseases, Dr. Kapur had served as the director of the Huck Institutes' Institute for Infectious Disease Dynamics and as the head of the Department of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences prior to his current appointment.
His research has been funded by such organizations as the US Department of Agriculture, National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, among many others.
And while his work is focused mainly on genomics and the molecular-level study of infectious diseases, Dr. Kapur is also driving major initiatives in other areas – including exploring relationships between food and health, and developing laboratory models of human organ systems to better facilitate drug development.
These initiatives – well representative of the Huck Institutes' overall trajectory – require innovative interdisciplinary approaches to engineering and biology as well as collaboration with industry, and have significant implications for changing the ways we look at food and drugs across the entire spectrum of human health, from agriculture and food production to preventative, corrective and regenerative medicine.
And the fact that Dr. Kapur's appointment is coincident with the completion of the Millennium Science Complex is, in his own words, "both timely and fortuitous."
"We've got this opportunity to take things to the next level...and I think the Millennium Science Complex exemplifies where [our] new opportunities for research excellence will emerge...at the interface between materials and life sciences...so of course, the timing is right."
As the Huck Institutes’ first associate director for strategic initiatives, Dr. Kapur will work closely with Director Peter Hudson while bringing the elements of his own unique experience to bear on continually focusing the Institutes’ initiatives on innovative and productive interdisciplinary collaborations, promoting excellence in life science research and education at Penn State, and ultimately on developing the Huck Institutes to their fullest potential.
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