NRT-URoL: Chemically-mediated biotic interactions in the age of metabolomics, genomics and enhanced macroecological data

为了迎接我们时代的巨大挑战，需要能够驾驭复杂和不断变化的生物、技术和人类社会系统的科学领导者。这项授予内华达大学的国家科学基金会研究培训(NRT)奖，在化学和生物学之间建立了首个跨学科研究生培训计划，利用化学、基因组学和数学建模方面的最新进展，培训学生回答与生物多样性生成和维护有关的基本问题。该项目将培训六十八(68)名硕士和博士生，其中包括二十三(23)名由NRT资助的受训人员，他们从事有机化学、分子生物学、生物信息学、基因组学、代谢组学、生态学和进化论等学科的工作。该计划的目标是培养具有技术和文化技能的毕业生，他们将成为自然资源管理机构、制药和农业行业以及学术界下一批科学和文化变革的领导者。该培训计划围绕一个具有凝聚力的研究主题建立：使用新方法将基因组与表型组联系起来，了解动植物表型变异的原因和后果。该计划将提供生物相互作用化学(CBI)以及伦理和包容性研究进行方面的尖端培训，利用教员-实习生团队、研究重点团队、新开发的课程、互惠的研究生指导、本科生指导、整个项目学习社区以及生态理论、合成化学、药物发现和/或公共土地管理实践的各种应用伙伴关系。受训者将展示解决以前无法达到的研究问题所需的技术专长的深度和跨学科知识的广度，这些问题涉及：1)天然产品的协同生物活性；2)天然产品或环境污染物对营养相互作用的影响；3)跨多个营养层次的扩散共同进化；4)化学和物种相互作用在塑造基因组变异中的作用；以及5)生物多样性的产生和维持。CBI研究员将学习如何建立和维持多样化的跨学科研究团队，他们的成员准备好进入劳动力大军，拥有沟通、团队合作和道德技能，使他们的科学能够接触到，并与全球、资源管理、行业合作伙伴和这些机构所服务的人相关。研究员将具备充分的能力，通过积累的外展和教育经验指导未来几代科学家。最后，学员将通过国际交流机会了解和欣赏现代科学的全球性。重要的是，该培训计划将创建一个可被其他机构改编的跨学科化学生态示范计划，以及一套可整合到其他研究生计划中的沟通、团队合作和伦理培训资源。NSF研究培训计划(NRT)旨在鼓励开发和实施大胆的、具有潜在变革性的STEM研究生教育培训模式。该计划致力于通过创新的、基于证据的、与不断变化的劳动力和研究需求保持一致的综合培训模式，在高度优先的跨学科或趋同的研究领域对STEM研究生进行有效培训。  该项目由美国国家科学基金会研究培训计划和既定的激励竞争研究计划共同资助。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智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

In order to meet the immense challenges of our times, there is a need for scientific leaders who can navigate complex and changing biological, technological, and human-social systems. This National Science Foundation Research Traineeship (NRT) award to the University of Nevada, Reno establishes a first-of-its-kind interdisciplinary graduate training program at the interface between chemistry and biology, utilizing recent advances in chemistry, genomics, and mathematical modeling to train students to answer fundamental questions concerning the generation and maintenance of biodiversity. The project will train sixty-eight (68) masters and doctoral students, including twenty-three (23) NRT-funded trainees, working across the disciplines of organic chemistry, molecular biology, bioinformatics, genomics, metabolomics, ecology, and evolution. The program’s goal is to create both technically and culturally skilled graduates that will become the next science and culture-change leaders in natural resource management agencies, the pharmaceutical and agricultural industries, and academia.This training program is built around a cohesive research theme: understanding the causes and consequences of phenotypic variation in plants and animals with respect to chemically mediated interactions in biotic communities using novel methods to link genome-to-phenome. The program will provide cutting-edge training in the Chemistry of Biological Interactions (CBI) and the ethical and inclusive conduct of research, leveraging faculty-trainee teams, research focus teams, newly developed courses, reciprocal graduate mentoring, undergraduate mentoring, a whole-program learning community, and various applied partnerships for the practice of ecological theory, synthetic chemistry, drug discovery, and/or public lands management. Trainees will demonstrate both the depth of technical expertise and breadth of interdisciplinary knowledge required to address previously unattainable research questions related to: 1) the synergistic biological activity of natural products; 2) the effects of natural products or environmental contaminants on trophic interactions; 3) diffuse coevolution across multiple trophic levels; 4) the role of chemical and species interactions in shaping genomic variation; and 5) the generation and maintenance of biological diversity. CBI Fellows will learn how to build and sustain diverse, interdisciplinary research teams whose members are prepared to enter the workforce with the communication, teamwork, and ethics skills that make their science accessible and pertinent to global, resource management, and industry partners and the people these institutions serve. Fellows will be well-equipped to mentor future generations of scientists through their accumulated outreach and education experience. Finally, trainees will understand and appreciate the global nature of modern science through international exchange opportunities. Importantly, this training program will create a model interdisciplinary chemical ecology program that can be adapted by other institutions and a set of communication, teamwork, and ethics training resources that can be integrated into other graduate programs.The NSF Research Traineeship (NRT) Program is designed to encourage the development and implementation of bold, new potentially transformative models for STEM graduate education training. The program is dedicated to effective training of STEM graduate students in high priority interdisciplinary or convergent research areas through comprehensive traineeship models that are innovative, evidence-based, and aligned with changing workforce and research needs.  This project is jointly funded by the NSF Research Traineeship program and the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR).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.