NRT: Integrative Bioinformatics for Investigating and Engineering Microbiomes (IBIEM)

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NRT: Integrative Bioinformatics for Investigating and Engineering Microbes (IBIEM)Microbes play a vital role in shaping almost every ecosystem on the planet. Understanding the capabilities of microbes and their microbial communities (microbiomes) is the foundation for a range of transformative discoveries essential for sustaining life and the environment. However, the numerous disciplines studying and working with microbes often operate in silos resulting from the lack of a shared knowledge base and common analytical processes, thus limiting the potential to develop novel applications. This National Science Foundation Research Traineeship (NRT) award will bring together biologists, engineers, computer scientists and biostatisticians at Duke University and North Carolina Agricultural and Technology State University to fill this gap. The traineeship anticipates preparing one hundred (100) doctoral students, including forty-five (45) funded trainees across the two institutions, to solve both current and the next generation of challenges in data-enabled science and engineering microbiome research.Metagenomic and metatranscriptomic (meta?omic) analyses in combination with advanced bioinformatic tools present a powerful approach for obtaining key insights into the complex microbial interactions underlying microbiome composition and function. Academic institutions have often struggled to keep pace with the growing and diverse meta?omics training demands of their students. This traineeship will address these training gaps by creating a novel and replicable education model where microbiologists, engineers, statisticians, and other empirical scientists will be cross-trained with theorists, model builders, and computational scientists. Trainees will learn to effectively work in interdisciplinary teams, engage in exciting research in environmental engineering and science, biomedical engineering, microbial genetics, biostatistics, and bioinformatics, and share discoveries within their cohort. Targeted interactions with practitioners will provide trainees with an understanding of real world challenges, competencies in various communication tools, collaborative skills utilized in the workforce, and an exposure to a wide range of careers. By instilling breadth of knowledge and cross-disciplinary awareness, the traineeship will foster creative integration and ultimately acceleration of discovery while helping to provide the nation?s workforce with students equipped with interdisciplinary skills to address global challenges including restoring ecosystems, developing innovative metabolic engineering pathways and engineering the next generation of therapies. Finally, through immersion of trainees in an array of outreach activities, a community will be developed with the motivation and skills to promote science and engineering to the broader population with goals of broad and substantial engagement of underrepresented groups in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields.The NSF Research Traineeship (NRT) Program is designed to encourage the development and implementation of bold, new, potentially transformative, and scalable models for STEM graduate education training. The Traineeship Track is dedicated to effective training of STEM graduate students in high priority interdisciplinary research areas, through the comprehensive traineeship model that is innovative, evidence-based, and aligned with changing workforce and research needs.