Center: National Synthesis Center for Emergence in the Molecular and Cellular Sciences

国家分子和细胞科学涌现综合中心（NCEMS）是一个国家资源驱动创新，使跨学科的科学家团队能够综合不同的数据和计算方法，以获得对生命系统更深入和更广泛的见解。认识到生物学中最小尺度上前所未有的数据增长的未开发潜力，NCEMS将催化和支持一系列活动，以了解新的细胞特征和生命中心现象如何从分子的性质和相互作用中出现。最初，NCEMS将专注于表征中尺度（定义为分子和细胞器之间的空间尺度）的涌现特性及其对高阶亚细胞和细胞系统的影响。该中心将通过加速跨主题的综合研究来完成这一任务，包括：(1)中尺度生物分子组织和功能的出现，(2)数据驱动的紧急特性发现，(3)通过跨物种比较对紧急特性进行解剖，(4)使用密集的中尺度数据对紧急特性进行建模，以及(5)应用包括机器学习和人工智能在内的跨领域数据科学技术。NCEMS将通过降低不同学科的科学家对不同数据整合的障碍，支持跨领域的方法转移，并确保工作知识的广泛可用，实现其加速大规模合成研究和开辟分子和细胞生物科学新领域的愿景。与此同时，NCEMS将通过在所有中心活动中整合创新和包容的学习方法，促进社区在数据密集型科学方面的培训和广泛参与。NCEMS是数据驱动研究分子和细胞系统涌现特性的变革力量。该中心的科学愿景是了解不同组成、空间、时间、能量、信息和运动尺度下新生物系统特性的外观。中尺度现象的复杂性和缺乏理解，以及从分子到表型特性的大量公开数据的可用性，使其成为该中心理想的初始焦点。这些数据继续以惊人的速度通过下一代测序，质谱，冷冻电镜和-ET，成像和高通量生物化学技术在许多条件下对不同的生物体产生。NCEMS利用数据，汇集了来自物理、生物和数据科学的不同专业知识和观点的科学家，并为他们提供计算和人力资源，以解决最复杂的综合问题，并在该领域追求开创性的想法。具体而言，NCEMS支持社区开展团队和开放科学；通过亚利桑那大学CyVerse提供的与云无关的网络基础设施实现协作；提供数据科学、机器学习、统计学和可再生科学基本要素的培训；并提供全国范围内远程参与NCEMS研究的机会。NCEMS还为本科生建立了一个强大的项目，特别是那些在STEM学科中代表性不足的本科生，参与综合研究，并从指导和体验式学习机会中受益。该项目的最初合作伙伴包括克拉弗林大学、奥尔康州立大学和费耶特维尔州立大学。NCEMS的所有教育活动都强调通过研讨会、培训活动和以研究为基础的学习机会，让社区广泛参与，旨在培养具有计算和数据科学能力的劳动力。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The National Synthesis Center for Emergence in the Molecular and Cellular Sciences (NCEMS) is a national resource driving innovation by enabling interdisciplinary teams of scientists to synthesize diverse data and computational methodologies to gain deeper and broader insights into living systems. Recognizing the untapped potential in the unprecedented growth of data on the smallest scales in biology, NCEMS will catalyze and support a suite of activities to understand how new cellular features and phenomena central to life emerge from the properties and interactions of molecules. Initially, NCEMS will focus on characterizing emergent properties at the mesoscale – defined as the spatial scale between molecules and cellular organelles – and their influence on higher order subcellular and cellular systems. The center will accomplish this mission by accelerating synthesis research across themes, including: (1) emergence of mesoscale biomolecular organization and function, (2) data-driven discovery of emergent properties, (3) dissection of emergent properties through cross-species comparisons, (4) modeling emergent properties using dense mesoscale data, and (5) applying cross-cutting data science techniques including Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence. NCEMS will realize its vision to expedite large-scale synthesis research and open new frontiers in molecular and cellular biosciences by lowering barriers to diverse data integration by scientists across different disciplines, supporting transfer of methodologies across fields, and ensuring that working knowledge is widely available. In parallel, NCEMS will advance training and broad participation of the community in data-intensive science by integrating innovative and inclusive learning approaches in all center activities. NCEMS is a transformative force in data-driven research on emergent properties in molecular and cellular systems. The center's scientific vision is to understand the appearance of new biological system properties at different scales of composition, space, time, energy, information, and motion. The complexity and lack of understanding of mesoscale phenomena and the availability of vast amounts of publicly available data spanning molecular to phenotypic properties make this an ideal initial focus for the center. These data continue to be generated at a prodigious rate through next-generation sequencing, mass spectrometry, Cryo-EM and -ET, imaging, and high-throughput biochemical techniques on diverse organisms under many conditions. NCEMS leverages the data and brings together scientists with diverse expertise and perspectives from the physical, biological, and data sciences, and supports them with computational and human resources to tackle the most confounding synthesis questions and pursue pathbreaking ideas in this area. Specifically, NCEMS supports the community in carrying out team and open science; enables collaboration through cloud-agnostic cyberinfrastructure provided by CyVerse at the University of Arizona; provides training in essential elements of data science, machine learning, statistics, and reproducible science; and offers nationwide opportunities to participate in NCEMS research remotely. NCEMS is also building a robust program for undergraduate students, particularly those underrepresented in STEM disciplines, to participate in synthesis research and benefit from mentorship and experiential learning opportunities. Initial partners in this program include Claflin, Alcorn State, and Fayetteville State Universities. All NCEMS educational activities emphasize broad participation of the community through workshops, training events, and research-based learning opportunities aimed at developing a workforce competent in computational and data sciences.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.