COBRE Center for Evolutionary and Theoretical Immunology

在我们第一个资助期内积累的专业知识和基础设施的基础上，该提案寻求通过NCRR的COBRE计划再获得五年的支持，使我们能够进一步加强和巩固自我维持和蓬勃发展的进化与理论免疫学中心（CETI）。再一次，无论是初级和高级教师学者从生物学和计算机科学系在新墨西哥州和洛斯阿拉莫斯国家实验室的大学将进行研究项目，旨在揭示免疫系统的基本设计原则，模拟病原体和免疫系统之间的相互作用，并探讨跨动物门免疫反应的进化。因此，我们将更好地了解无脊椎动物媒介如何传播传染病，病原体如何保护自己免受免疫攻击，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，以发展独立资助的初级研究人员，为我们的成员提供赠款准备和管理方面的后勤支持，并抓住一切机会努力改善他们的长期职业前景。我们将雇用更多的CETI相关的终身教职员工，并继续与其他NCRR计划和UNM管理合作，以支持和改善CETI在分子生物学，受控环境和质谱/蛋白质组学方面的核心设施。我们还将扩大和改善CETI的物理家园，搬进CETI通过与UNM政府建立富有成效的伙伴关系而利用的新设施，我们将启动一个新的种子赠款计划，以增加CETI的广度和影响。我们将制定多研究者的建议，以标志CETI的毕业从NCRR的资金，并继续寻求新的方法，以促进我们的成员之间的整合和合作，并与新墨西哥州研究界。最后，CETI将越来越多地作为一个催化剂，以开发新的培训和生物医学研究的机会，在我们的国家，并将利用我们的临界质量进行倡议和有利于研究，使我们能够实现世界级的认可和突出。

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.