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Idaho Represented at National Diversity Conference

Three graduate students and 1 postdoctoral fellow from the University of Idaho are attending the 2020 SACNAS virtual conference this week thanks to IMCI and the Lauren Ancel Meyers Scholarship fund.

Dr. Meyers, a featured Seminar Speaker earlier this semester, is the Cooley Centennial Professor of Integrative Biology and Statistics & Data Sciences at the University of Texas at Austin. She has been a pioneer in the application of computational models to improve outbreak detection, forecasting and control. Professor Meyers leads an interdisciplinary team of scientists, engineers, and public health experts in uncovering the drivers of epidemics and building practical tools for the CDC and other global health agencies to track and mitigate viral threats, including COVID-19, pandemic influenza, Ebola, HIV, and Zika.

SACNAS serves as a broadly inclusive organization dedicated to fostering the success of Chicano/Hispanics and Native Americans, from college students to professional in attaining advanced degrees, careers, and positions of leadership within STEM.

This multidisciplinary and multicultural event includes motivational keynote speakers, student research presentations, cultural celebrations and 1-on-1 mentoring opportunities.

Congratulations to scholarship recipients Travis Seaborn, Chava Castaneda, Breanna Sipley and Kristen Martinet.

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Become a Carpentries Instructor

IMCI is continuing its support of our Carpentries workshops so that another cohort of instructors can participate in pedagogy training and become Carpentries instructors. IMCI asks you to teach at least one workshop or co-teach two workshops at U of I after we sponsor your training.

For BCB graduate students, helping with these workshops may satisfy the teaching requirements of your degree (contact Dr. Tank for details).

For postdocs and graduate students wanting teaching experience, we will set up the workshops as official BCB504 courses. 

The instructor training does not teach technical skills but is a way to brush up on teaching methods, best practices for live-coding, and how to facilitate an inclusive learning environment. Of note, Carpentries-trained instructors have the option of being part of a nation-wide pool of instructors available for hire (paid travel) by other institutions.

For more information, contact JT Van Leuven or feel free to email any of the past instructors.

If you are interested in becoming a Carpentries instructor,
please reach out to jvanleuven@uidaho.edu.

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Animals’ Susceptibility to Coronavirus Subject of U of I Research

The following article highlights research funded through IMCI. The original news release was written by Ralph Bartholdt in University of Idaho Communications and Marketing.

MOSCOW, Idaho — Sept. 17, 2020 — Whether coronavirus can use farm animals or North American bats as intermediate hosts to spread the novel pathogen SARS-CoV2 is being explored by three University of Idaho researchers.

At his lab on the Moscow campus, Paul Rowley, a virologist and assistant professor in the Department of Biological Sciences, is using mammalian cell cultures and a viral agent similar to coronavirus to get to the bottom of the question.

“We already know that humans can infect cats and other animals,” Rowley said. “We’re interested in learning what animals are susceptible and if there’s a risk of SARS-CoV2 jumping into the bat population in North America, or domestic cattle or livestock.”

Aided by a federal grant, Rowley has teamed with U of I Research Assistant Professor Jagdish Patel, a molecular modeling specialist, and James Van Leuven, research assistant professor, to identify animal populations that are likely susceptible to the pandemic.

Ferret farms in Europe this year were shut down and the animals killed because of SARS-CoV2 infections, Rowley said. And civet cats — a weasel-like animal related to the mongoose — were partly responsible for the SARS outbreak of almost 20 years ago.

“Those populations could potentially act as viral reservoirs and could initiate new disease outbreaks,” Rowley said.

Viruses are submicroscopic bundles of genetic material that cannot replicate without first invading a host cell. Once inside a cell, viruses such as SARS-CoV2, the coronavirus responsible for the global pandemic, multiply and can make us sick.

Instead of working on treatments to kill SARS-CoV2, Rowley, Patel and U of I Department of Physics Professor Marty Ytreberg, began last spring to locate cell doors — called receptors — that allow viruses to board and invade a cell.

If the researchers find a way to block receptors that allow SARS-CoV2 to penetrate a cell, they could effectively halt the spread of the virus. Determining the animal receptors that enable SARS-CoV2 cell entry will benefit both human and animal health, Rowley said.

So far, scientists have learned that livestock is not as susceptible to coronavirus as humans, he said.

Externally Funded Projects

University of Idaho Receives Grant of Nearly $11M for Biomedical Research Modeling

MOSCOW, Idaho — Aug. 13, 2020 — The University of Idaho has secured a grant of nearly $11 million from the National Institutes of Health to support continued modeling for biomedical research at U of I’s Institute for Modeling Collaboration and Innovation (IMCI).

The funding comes as Phase 2 of a Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) grant received by the U of I in 2015. COBRE grants support the establishment and development of biomedical research through awards granted in three sequential phases.

During Phase 1, grant funds of $10.6 million helped U of I students, staff and faculty researchers from nearly every college incorporate modeling in their projects. Funds financed projects such as studying disease severity and transmission rates in hosts infected with multiple pathogens at the same time and the role of social influence and human perceptions of infection risk when making vaccine choices. Phase 1 money also supported major equipment purchases that help facilitate the production of quantitative data, sponsored 11 postdoctoral fellowships and assisted faculty acquire nearly $20 million for additional research in the state of Idaho.

IMCI is supporting several research projects related to COVID-19.

“We are proud of our Institute for Modeling Collaboration and Innovation researchers who make important contributions to the state of Idaho and our nation,” University of Idaho President Scott Green said. “This team was instrumental to guiding statewide decisions in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. This biomedical research grant that is focused on cancer and the human microbiome will enable this talented team to further advance those efforts, helping our leaders and medical community save lives and improve living conditions in our country.”

The Phase 2 COBRE funds will continue to bolster U of I interdisciplinary biomedical research with new research projects studying cancer genomics, cancer imaging and interpreting variation in the human microbiome. New projects will be added over the course of this five-year grant.

“This funding allows us to continue what we’ve started and is particularly important to the campus community as we elevate our research profile,” said Holly Wichman, distinguished professor, IMCI director and principal investigator on the grant. “IMCI is a team-based idea generator that encourages participation across disciplines and among people who might otherwise never connect. Such collaboration fosters big ideas, and big ideas solve big problems.”

Brainstorming is a focus of IMCI. The COBRE grant finances research projects for early career faculty and pilot grants to explore possible new research directions. Funding also supports IMCI’s Modeling Core, a unique service center of postdoctoral researchers that offers diverse skills in various modeling approaches to principal investigators and working groups. It also supports learning opportunities for the campus community through a seminar series, workshops and hands-on data management and analysis training.

“We think all researchers should use modeling,” Wichman said. “Modeling improves research at all stages – hypothesis formulation, experimental design, analysis and interpretation – and provides a unifying language by which exchange of ideas can highlight commonalities and uncover unforeseen connections between problems.”

Modeling is especially useful when it is not feasible to experimentally explore all solutions to a problem. IMCI modeling approaches include everything from using mathematical formulas to replicate and predict real-world behavior to simulating molecule interactions to building physical and computational models of 3D objects. This funding will allow IMCI to bring new modeling expertise to the U of I research community.

This project was funded to University of Idaho by National Institutes of Health/National Institute of General Medical Sciences under award 2P20GM104420-06.The total project funding is $10,999,565.00 of which 100.00% is the federal share.

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