Five interdisciplinary teams of researchers from across the colleges of Colorado State University will be collaborating on some of the world’s most pressing global problems as part of the Catalyst for Innovative Partnerships initiative. The Office of the Vice President of Research launched the CIP initiative in 2015 and has now chosen its second cohort.
The program seeks to build multidisciplinary research teams that will forge partnerships to pursue new opportunities for translating discoveries into practice.
“The first class was a resounding success with new team formation and over $16 million raised with significant scholarly outputs,” said Vice President for Research Alan Rudolph.
The second class of teams will be seeded with up to $200,000 each. They will be provided infrastructural support by the university to nurture the creation and delivery of solutions in disease transmission, healthy aging, food systems, biomolecular imaging and biosecurity.
“This unique program provides support for teams pursuing big ideas and creates uncommon collaborations for funding interdisciplinary and disciplinary depth,” said Rudolph. “The OVPR is pleased to be part of the new catalyst teams’ future success.”
2017-19 Catalyst for Innovative Partnership Teams
TerraForma: Simulating Reality in Artificial Ecosystems
To understand diseases better, this team will look at creating artificial ecosystems or “worlds-in-a-bottle” to evaluate and control the role of environmental changes in the transmission of animal and plant pathogens.
Colleges represented: College of Agricultural Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, Walter Scott, Jr. College of Engineering.
Other partners represented: Office of the Vice President for Research
Enriched Environments for the Healthy, Aging Brain
This team will provide one of the only large-scale, transdisciplinary assessments of non-pharmacological intervention in the U.S. for diseases such as Alzheimer’s and dementia.
Colleges represented: College of Natural Sciences, College of Health and Human Sciences, College of Liberal Arts
Other partners represented: Blue Penguin
Securing Life Science Infrastructures
This team will examine the adoption of security policies that protect life-science infrastructures from exposure to biological agents that can compromise human health, food supplies, or natural resources.
Colleges Represented: College of Business, College of Liberal Arts, College of Natural Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, Walter Scott, Jr. College of Engineering
Other partners represented: Merrick & Co, Inspirion Biosciences, Virginia Tech
TagTeam: New Molecular Tags for In Vivo Imaging and Editing
To better facilitate future basic and applied research that depends on the imaging or editing of specific molecules inside living cells; this team will produce new reliable molecular tools to “click” biomolecules together.
Colleges represented: College of Natural Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, Walter Scott, Jr. College of Engineering
Rural Wealth Creation: Exploring food systems-led development strategies
The project seeks to understand how food system strategies can contribute to social, cultural, human, political, physical, natural, and financial capital in rural communities.
Colleges represented: College of Agricultural Sciences, College of Health and Human Sciences, College of Liberal Arts, College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, Walter Scott, Jr. College of Engineering, Warner College of Natural Resources
