Statewide Science

By Russ CampbellTHE STATE OF ACADEMIC RESEARCHWorking together drives academic projects across the state. Several years ago, Duke University created a task force to look at the study of the psychological sciences around its campus in Durham, NC. "A question came up on whether the departments should be merged," says James N. Siedow, vice provost for research at Duke. "There was really good psychological research going on all over campus, but there was nothing tying everyone together. So everyone was just kind of operating on their own." In December 2006, the Institute of Brain, Mind, Genes, and Behavior was created to bring more focus and organization to psychological research throughout Duke's campus. "These things don't arise out of some primordial ooze," says Siedow. "We studied this carefully for a couple of years. By creating the institute, we hoped to create some synergy across the research."This example provides a metaphor for the strength of academic research in North Carolina. Increasingly, the state's universities share resources and strengths to create an engaging climate for biotechnology companies and corporations looking to relocate or establish new research centers. Such collaborations involve universities across the state, including Duke University, East Carolina University, North Carolina A&T State University, North Carolina Central University (NCCU), North Carolina State University (NCSU), University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill, UNC Greensboro (UNCG), UNC Charlotte, Wake Forest University, and others. "In order to do research these days, it's not so much the "lone ranger" as it used to be," says Siedow. "The challenges we face in any number of sciences are going to need a computer scientist, a statistician, and you need to bring these people with different expertise to work together on these problems." © DUKE UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTERSCALING UP FOR SUCCESSSome smaller universities even play in the big leagues, especially if they form the right alliances. For example, NCCU forged partnerships with the state's major medical centers - the Lineberger cancer center at UNC Chapel Hill, the Wake Forest School of Medicine, and Duke University Medical Center - and this moved NCCU into biomedical research. Before 1999, NCCU did not receive National Institutes of Health R01 funding, which is considered the gold standard of academic research. This past year, though, it received five R01 awards. Ken Harewood, who heads the Julius L. Chambers Biomedical/Biotechnology Research Institute (BBRI) at NCCU, says he has never seen this type of commitment and collaboration. "The planning that the state is engaged in - bringing all the stakeholders - is tremendous," says Harewood. "North Carolina wants to be number one in terms of biotechnology, and I'm very optimistic that in 10 years it may be in that position." Harewood also sees the benefits to his university. "We develop these collaborations to give us access to the translational component that is usually missing from small schools like us," he says, referring to "bench to bedside" research, which produces immediate effects for patients. 1. Duke University's General Science Building, 2. NCSU Cenntenial Campus, 3. Kannapolis' Core Lab Building.© 2007 ROGER W. WINSTEAD, NC STATE UNIVERSITY RENDERING COURTESY OF NCRC Sometimes, though, "small" applies to a technology, rather than an institution. At UNCG and NC-A&T, for example, administrators and scientists teamed up to plan a joint school of nanoscience and nanoengineering. UNCG and NC-A&T also developed a 20-year plan that will pour $250 million into Gateway University Research Park. This commitment to growth from the universities is already attracting newcomers. For instance, the American Institute of Financial Gerontology recently moved to UNCG.With so many programs growing around Greensboro, the research can go beyond new biological discoveries or technological advances. One scientist also studies what it takes to get students interested in science, which will be needed to meet the increasing demand for scientists in this state. Heidi Carlone, a researcher in UNCG's department of curriculum and instruction, recently received support from the National Science Foundation to explore how good science teachers grab and keep the interest of students. As a start, Carlone is tracking grade school students over a few years. "Students often develop their academic identities in the critical years of early adolescence," says Carlone, "Some think that people are born to be scientists, but I'm asking if 'science people' can be cultivated through excellent pedagogy."Moreover, Carlone indicates that today's science teachers might not get evaluated optimally. "Most of the time excellent teaching is measured by how well students do on a standardized test," she says. "A focus on science identity means that good teaching is not only evaluated by student achievement, but it includes much more than that. I want to know if students acquire new ways of talking, seeing the natural world, describing themselves, and relating to others." She adds, "This is teaching for identity transformation. It's a whole new way to consider what counts as effective teaching." © 2007 ROGER W. WINSTEAD, NC STATE UNIVERSITYGAINING NEW SUPPORTStaying effective in research also depends on securing funding. UNC, Chapel Hill, for example, ranks 16th in the nation for funding received from the NIH. Some forward thinking by university administrators, though, should decrease that reliance on federal funding, which feeds 71% of UNC Chapel Hill's research budget. To use less federal money, however, a university must attract more corporate partners."A big disadvantage for us is that we don't have what other big research universities have," says Tony Waldrop, vice chancellor of research at UNC, Chapel Hill. "That is an incubator facility and a research campus where we can attract those corporate partners."That problem, though, could soon disappear. Working with a developer that specializes in creating incubator facilities, UNC, Chapel Hill plans to develop an innovation center. Nonetheless, research from UNC, Chapel Hill has already sparked 25 companies in the past seven years. With the right incubator environment, that number could soar.Turning even more research into commercial applications will demand expanding collaborations, especially between scientists working in different fields. That work can even cross state boundaries, which happened in collaboration between UNC, Chapel Hill's Jian Liu, an assistant professor of medicinal chemistry, and Robert Linhardt of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in upstate New York. In 2006, these scientists reported on a synthetic approach to making heparin, which could lead to far more consistent formulations of this common blood-clotting drug. © 2007 ROGER W. WINSTEAD, NC STATE UNIVERSITYGOOD SPORTSMANSHIPCompeting for research dollars and universities working together rarely comes to mind on a Saturday afternoon along Highway I-40, which cuts across the state east to west. Armadas of vehicles display their colors with flags whipping in the wind as fans head to football games. On those fall afternoons, some of the most heated state rivalries in the country ensue. After the games, though, at least some of the fans return to teams that cross gridiron boundaries. Following I-40 to the east from Chapel Hill and through the center of Research Triangle Park leads to the state capital, Raleigh, a site of extensive Carolina teamwork.A joint program between NCSU and UNC Chapel Hill provides an ongoing example. In the fall of 2003, UNC's School of Medicine and NCSU's College of Engineering forged a program that offers an MS or PhD in biomedical engineering. The faculty in this program also run strong research programs. In 2006, for example, two faculty members, Venkat Ramshesh and Steve Knisley, reported on an optical-imaging technique that looks deeper, about two and a half times deeper, into heart tissue than previous techniques could. These investigators plan to apply this technique to study cardiac fibrillation, which can trigger deadly arrhythmias.Julius L. Chambers Biomedical/Biotechnology Research Institute at North Carolina Central UniversityCOURTESY OF NCSU Nonetheless, NCSU's Centennial campus might make the best example of technological collaboration in Raleigh. More than 20 years old, this campus covers about 1,300 acres for various uses, including lab space, incubators, and even building sites. This site also hosts 1,600 corporate and government employees, 1,350 university faculty, staff, and postdocs, plus 600 middle school students and 60 residents. That's right: The Centennial Campus goes beyond science to residential amenities. In the future, plans even call for a golf course."Centennial campus is a reflection of what our faculty really do," says John Gilligan, vice chancellor for research and graduate studies at NCSU. "It's unique in a physical sense because you can locate business, industry, academic researchers, academic programs, the students, [and] government partners all in one place that is totally integrated to get those interactions in the best way possible."Getting such interaction depends on mixing the right ingredients. At the Centennial campus, producing the right mixture took many partnerships: 61 corporate and government sponsors; 73 North Carolina research centers, institutes, laboratories, and departments; and 200 faculty members. Dr. Ruben Carbonell (left) chats with one of his graduate students about her work in their Partners I lab on Centennial Campus.© 2007 ROGER W. WINSTEAD, NC STATE UNIVERSITYIT'S NOT JUST ACADEMICAs NCSU administrators found with Centennial campus, corporate and government partnerships can propel academic research. Beyond supplying funding, these partnerships offer students real-world training. Furthermore, partnerships aimed at technological advances can bring even more government funding. "All of the federal agencies that support basic research see that they need to make it more relevant and translated into real-world application," says Gilligan. "NC State is poised to take advantage of this new federal investment because it plays to our strengths in engineering and applied sciences."Many universities know that today's genomics frequently generates results that move from labs to clinics. Consequently, Duke launched its Institute for Genome Science Policy in 2000. Siedow says that the institute was created because Duke thought it was a bit behind in the field of genomics. "We had a few individual hires, but in terms of a focused genomics effort we hadn't really done a good job of putting a stake in the ground in the genomics area."Today, Duke's scientists push toward the front of the research pack that drives genomics into applications. To highlight just two of many examples, in the February 2007 issue of Nature Methods, Duke associate professor of medicine Feng Gao and his colleagues described a new test that detects genetics changes to determine drug-resistant HIV strains in AIDS patients. This could help physicians decide on the therapy to use for that patient. Also, Gerard Blobe, Duke associate professor of medicine, pharmacology, and cancer, and his colleagues found a surface protein that can get lost in breast cancer cells, and losing that protein allows the cancerous cells to spread. With that knowledge, Blobe's team might find ways to prevent metastasis.REWARDING THE RENAISSANCE SCIENTISTSSo much talk about collaborations, teamwork, and taking projects from the lab to the clinic suggests that today's scientists must do it all, turning into Renaissance researchers. Indeed, this article, so far, has neglected one crucial area: computation.North Carolina beefed up its academic computing resources a couple years ago with the Renaissance Computing Institute. In 2004, this institute started as a joint effort between Duke, NCSU, UNC Chapel Hill, and the North Carolina government. It recently announced the intention to expand westward as far as UNC Asheville and eastward to East Carolina University. The institute runs a wide range of projects, including the North Carolina Bioportal, which provides computational tools for biochemistry, genetics, molecular biology, and protein chemistry.No modern life scientist doubts the value of computation. "The original sequencing of the human genome wasn't going to happen unless some scientist came to the table to figure out how to handle all these sequences and ultimately make sense of them," says Siedow, explaining one crucial application of computation in biology.Despite all the hard work among academics in North Carolina, no one can compute the future direction of this state's research. Will collaboration among North Carolina's universities bear fruitful returns on their high expectations? Time will tell. Heated competition can make federal research dollars scarce, and international research opportunities could reduce corporate and private funding. Still, the strong collaboration in North Carolina should keep these scientists in the game. One day, some of this state's scientists could be better known around the world than North Carolina's amazing athletes - okay, basketball star Michael Jordan excepted. As Jordan learned with the Chicago Bulls, though, even the greatest superstar working alone cannot bring a championship. That takes teamwork, which is just what North Carolina has.

Statewide Science

Interested in reading more?

Become a Member of