Inside Stanford Medicine - February 28th, 2011
An upcoming campus event will afford attendees a glimpse of what’s possible when researchers from diverse disciplines collaborate.
The Bio-X Interdisciplinary Initiatives Symposium begins 1 p.m., March 11, in the Clark Center auditorium. It aims to inform the Stanford community of the latest research projects fostered by the Bio-X Interdisciplinary Initiatives Program, including:
- Revelations about the neural circuitry that controls growth.
- New methods for noninvasive monitoring of radiation-induced neuroinflammation.
- The integration of computational modeling, engineered biomaterials and stem cells in cardiac repair.
- The use of bioinformatics to study effects of climate change on coral reefs.
The IIP provides seed funding — about $3 million every other year in the form of two-year grants of $150,000 — to researchers from across campus. Funded proposals typically involve research areas that could best (or only) be performed by interdisciplinary teams of faculty, as well as the development of new curricula, seminars and symposia that cross departmental boundaries.
The event will feature presentations by faculty members from biology, chemistry, radiation oncology, mechanical engineering, materials science and engineering, gastroenterology and hepatology, developmental biology and pediatrics. They are: Jay Pasricha, PhD; Sarah Heilshorn, PhD; Daniel Bernstein, MD; Beth Pruitt, PhD; Matthew Scott, PhD; Bianxiao Cui, PhD; Billy Loo, MD, PhD; Vijay Pande, PhD; and Stephen Palumbi, PhD.
These speakers, who are recipients of the fourth-round IIP awards given in 2008, will discuss their projects. At 4 p.m. a poster session will present students’ interdisciplinary research.
From inception in 2000 through the fifth round in 2010, the IIP has provided early-stage funding to 113 projects involving more than 294 faculty from dozens of departments. These projects have resulted in hundreds of manuscripts in top-notch journals as well as the development of new technologies and more than 30 filed patents. The first four rounds of funding, totaling $12 million, have generated more than $150 million in external funding to the university.
Bio-X, a joint project of the Schools of Humanities and Sciences, Engineering, Earth Sciences, and Medicine, was created in 1998 to promote interdisciplinary research in the biosciences.
For more detail, contact Fiona Sincock, 724-3616, fsincock@stanford.edu, or Heideh Fattaey, 799-1608, hfattaey@stanford.edu.