COBRE Center for Evolutionary and Theoretical Immunology

在我们第一个资助期积累的大量专业知识和基础设施的基础上，这项提案寻求通过NCRR的Cobre计划再提供五年的支持，使我们能够进一步加强和巩固一个自我维持和蓬勃发展的进化与理论免疫学中心(CETI)。来自新墨西哥大学和洛斯阿拉莫斯国家实验室生物学和计算机科学系的初级和高级教职学者将再次开展研究项目，试图揭示免疫系统的基本设计原则，对病原体和免疫系统之间的相互作用进行建模，并探索动物门中免疫反应的进化。因此，我们将更好地了解无脊椎动物媒介如何传播传染病，病原体如何防御免疫攻击，以及免疫系统的比较研究如何导致令人兴奋的新概念框架和范式。我们还将改进我们的指导计划，以培养独立资助的初级调查人员，为我们的成员提供赠款准备和管理方面的后勤支持，并抓住每一个机会努力改善他们的长期职业前景。我们将招聘更多与CETI相关的终身教员，并继续与其他NCRR项目和UNM管理部门合作，以支持和改进CETI在分子生物学、受控环境和质谱学/蛋白质组学方面的核心设施。我们还将通过搬进CETI通过与UNM管理部门富有成效的伙伴关系利用的新设施来扩大和改善CETI的有形之家，我们将启动一项新的种子赠款计划，以扩大CETI的广度和影响。我们将制定多名研究人员的建议，以纪念CETI从NCRR基金中毕业，并继续寻求新的方式来促进我们成员之间以及与新墨西哥州研究界的整合和合作。最后，CETI将越来越多地充当催化剂，在我们州开发新的培训和生物医学研究机会，并将利用我们的关键群体来开展倡议和支持研究，使我们能够获得世界级的认可和突出地位。

Building on the critical mass of expertise and infrastructure assembled during our first funding period, this proposal seeks five more years of support through NCRR's COBRE program to enable us to further strengthen and consolidate a self-sustaining and flourishing Center for Evolutionary and Theoretical Immunology (CETI). Once again, both junior and senior faculty scholars from the Biology and Computer Science Departments at the University of New Mexico and the Los Alamos National Labs will undertake research projects that seek to reveal basic design principles of immune systems, that model the interactions between pathogens and immune systems, and that explore the evolution of immune responses across animal phyla. Consequently, we will better understand how invertebrate vectors transmit infectious diseases, how pathogens defend themselves from immune attack and how the comparative study of immune systems can lead to exciting new conceptual frameworks and paradigms. We will also improve our mentoring program to develop independently-funded junior investigators, provide our members logistical support in grant preparation and management and at every opportunity strive to improve their long-term career prospects. We will hire additional CETI-related tenure track faculty and continue to partner with other NCRR-programs and the UNM administration to support and improve CETI's core facilities in molecular biology, controlled environments and mass spectrometry/proteomics. We will also expand and improve the physical home of CETI by moving into new facilities that CETI has leveraged through productive partnerships with the UNM administration, and we will initiate a new seed grant program to increase the breadth and impact of CETI. We will develop multi-investigator proposals to mark CETI's graduation from NCRR funding and continue to seek new ways to promote integration and collaborations among our members and with the New Mexico research community. Lastly, CETI will increasingly serve as a catalyst to develop new training and biomedical research opportunities in our state and will use our critical mass to undertake initiatives and favor research enabling us to achieve world class recognition and prominence.