调整优势推进医学

对抗病毒并不简单：Covid-19大流行已经清楚地表明。随着病毒开始夺取生命并占据头条新闻，北卡罗来纳州的几个学科的国家科学家聚集在一起，探索了打击病毒感染的创造性策略。

尽管在大学的不同地区，他们还是能够迅速开始这项重要的工作，因为它们是NC State的一部分的联系Comparative Medicine Institute(CMI)。这个研究所鼓励interdisciplinary collaborations among more than 200 biomedical sciences-focused researchers in six colleges and 26 academic departments at NC State, as well as researchers from UNC-Chapel Hill, Duke University and N.C. Central University.

Scientists in the institute use a team science approach, working together to study a broad range of problems related to human and animal health from the basic molecular level all the way through human and veterinary clinical trials.

“我们拥有科学和兽医医学中的各种资源，可以帮助我们解决与人类健康相关的问题，” CMI联合导演和Lord Corporation的Joshua Pierce在该研究中说。College of Sciences.

“Our program is the link between what happens at NC State in translational medicine, which uses basic science to investigate new medical therapies or procedures, and the clinical application at UNC and Duke,” says Jorge Piedrahita, CMI co-director and Randall B. Terry Jr. Distinguished Professor of Translational Medicine and Alumni Association Distinguished Graduate Professor in theCollege of Veterinary Medicine.

Making Crucial Connections

在北卡罗来纳州的一所大学中，与分享您的研究兴趣但技能或观点不同的其他人建立联系可能具有挑战性。像其他NC国家研究中心和研究所一样，CMI旨在使其变得更加容易。

Creating and building centers and institutes has been a focus of NC State’s research efforts in recent years because of their potential to encourage collaboration.

北卡罗来纳州州立大学的研究和创新副校长Mladen Vouk说：“中心和学院为NC州发挥了重要的研究功能，将研究人员汇集在一起​​，以解决改善我们未来的复杂跨学科问题。”“每天，这有助于CMI在动物和人类疾病教育和研究方面取得重要的临床和研究进展。”

“The mission of the CMI is to bring faculty together to do better research,” says Piedrahita. “Everything we do is to promote faculty and students interacting with each other.”

One way the CMI encourages collaboration is by providing seed funding to research proposals only if they are from more than one investigator. “Give us a project that brings two fields together, and we get excited,” Piedrahita says.

CMI成员Matt Fisher说：“ CMI对CMI的有用是真正收集和集中NC州必须提供的深度，即可能是跨部门的特定主题。”Joint Department of Biomedical Engineeringat NC State and UNC-Chapel Hill.

To help spark these connections, the institute regularly hosts retreats, brainstorming sessions and other types of networking events, which have moved online since social distancing measures were put in place.

One such event helped Pierce make a fruitful connection with a veterinary medicine researcher he previously hadn’t known. “A CMI pitch event has led to a startup company, two funded National Institutes of Health grants and a really productive collaboration in ways I couldn’t have expected,” Pierce says.

Timely Solutions

Once people understand their common interests and find open lines of communication, creative interdisciplinary research can blossom.

After the COVID-19 pandemic started, CMI Associate Director Scott Laster started receiving calls from faculty who wanted to find others to collaborate with on antiviral solutions. Within weeks, the CMI launched its Center for Advanced Virus Experimentation (CAVE).

“Some viruses are just too smart, and scientists have been in a rut trying to develop vaccines for them,” says Laster, a professor of biological sciences. “So we’re taking a different angle.”

A core team of eight faculty from four NC State colleges is focusing on four approaches: antiviral materials (for things like desks and steering wheels) that would reduce the spread of viruses, new models for studying virus growth, foods that can be engineered to produce antiviral effects, and novel therapies to treat viral infections. Though the research is still in early stages, advances could make a big difference in how the world fights future pandemics.

“NC State hasn’t traditionally been a leader in this area, but we’ve essentially taken the strengths we have and aligned them to tackle this,” Pierce says.

CMI的研究人员也在与其他广泛的医疗应用一起进行重要工作，包括在猪中建模食物过敏反应to better understand how humans respond to the same allergens, developing targeted cancer and antibiotic therapies and designing replacements for musculoskeletal soft tissues.

The institute has generated eight patents and four startups, focusing on innovations including new treatments for pain and new drugs for antibiotic-resistant infections and for hypertension in humans and animals.

Expanding Efforts

A major new example of the interdisciplinary collaboration the CMI fosters is the new生活的化学该计划于2020年7月作为研究所的一部分启动。

Pierce developed the program after being inspired by the CMI’s approaches and considering how they intersected with his own fields, synthetic chemistry and chemical biology.

“After working in the CMI, I realized there was an opportunity to develop team science approaches and student programs in the life sciences with more of a chemistry focus,” Pierce says.

The new program, which will focus on developing innovative coursework and undergraduate and graduate training, is launching with a cohort of three graduate students. “All of them are exceptional students who decided to come to NC State because of this program,” Pierce says.

In addition to bringing bright new minds to the institute — and the university — the new program brings a molecular-focused component to the work that the CMI has been doing for years.

Provost Warwick Arden sees the Comparative Medicine Institute as a catalyst for interdisciplinary collaboration across campus and the new Chemistry of Life Program as a welcome part of that work. His office has made strategic investments in both initiatives, with a focus on expanding their graduate and undergraduate training opportunities.

皮尔斯说：“我们很高兴该计划将如何帮助我们将项目提升到一个新的水平并促进新的合作。”

Setting Up Success

Empowering each member of the institute with opportunities for professional growth so that they can do their best work is a major focus of the CMI, say Piedrahita and Pierce.

As a faculty member still relatively early in his career, Pierce believes he wouldn’t be in the position of launching a major new program and co-directing a large institute of this caliber without the leadership experiences the CMI has offered him since he came to NC State in 2012.

“As a faculty-led initiative, the institute offers so many leadership opportunities for younger faculty that aren’t just administrative,” he says. “They’re able to bring their vision to creating new programs and mentoring students in ways they might not be able to elsewhere.”

As another early-career faculty member, Fisher agrees that the networking opportunities the CMI offers and the chances he’s had to co-lead subgroups and generate research projects have helped his career. “It’s a very supportive environment to gain leadership experience,” he says.

The leadership opportunities don’t stop with faculty.

皮埃拉希塔说：“毕业生和本科生确实改变了CMI。”“他们帮助我们从严格的研究所转向研究和教育学院。”

Graduate and undergraduate students have really transformed the CMI.

Two of the institute’s signature programs, theSummer Interdisciplinary Research Initiative(SIRI) and theYoung Scholars Program（YSP），帮助为本科生和研究生提供了研究和指导的独特机会。一年级或二年级的学生与CMI实验室的研究生一起选择了研究生在秋季设计和介绍他们的研究的项目。许多本科生继续与实验室合作，直到离开NC州为止。

“The CMI has opened up a lot of doors for me,” says Nithin Gupta, a recent graduate in genetics who is now working as an associate researcher in Piedrahita’s lab as he prepares to apply for medical school.

古普塔说：“我一直被告知在实验室做什么。”“但是当我启动Siri计划时，皮埃拉希塔博士立即告诉我，在他的实验室中，我将被视为博士学位。学生。这对我来说真的很好，因为它使我有能力独立并形成自己的想法的自由。”

自2018年参加Siri计划以来，上升的高级生物化学专业劳林·布拉克斯顿（Lauryn Braxton）在CMI的两个不同实验室工作。她目前正在开发一个研究项目，她可以随身携带她的研究生院。

“My mentors have always invested time into understanding my goals as I developed as a researcher,” Braxton says. “I came in pretty clueless and have learned so much.”

Jessica Gilbertie, a postdoctoral fellow in veterinary medicine, has mentored undergraduates through the SIRI program for three summers — and all three of these students still work in her lab. She says the CMI has helped her grow as both a researcher and a mentor.

“I love being able to interact with passionate undergraduates and introduce them to science,” Gilbertie says. “It’s awe-inspiring to watch them become more independent and start growing their own hypotheses.”

皮埃拉希塔（Piedrahita）和皮尔斯（Pierce）很高兴能通过创造新的领导力机会，设计本科生和研究生专业和次要计划来继续发展CMI，大学和生物医学科学领域的未来领导者。他们还打算将聪明的研究人员融合在一起。

“Our first five years have been incredibly successful,” Pierce says. “We’re hoping in our next five years we can expand the success we’ve had with interdisciplinary partnerships more broadly across the university.”