NIH National Program of Excellence in Biomedical Computing Planning Grant
Principal Investigators: Donald P. Gaver and Lisa J. Fauci
The CCS has been awarded a pre-NPEBC grant from the National Institutes of Health for a project titled "Biocomputing: Integrating Molecular/Organ- Level Function."
The goal is to develop Tulane University's community of biomedical researchers, applied mathematicians and computational scientists into a National Program of Excellence in Biomedical Computing (NPEBC). To do so, we are providing the essential physical and intellectual infrastructure to perform advanced computational simulations of biomedical systems, with a focus on multi-scale problems where molecular mechanisms influence large-scale physiological behavior. Center activities will develop interdisciplinary links between cohorts of faculty and research associates of diverse educational backgrounds (theoreticians, computational and experimental scientists, clinical investigators), and will create a substantial link between the educational and research missions of Tulane University. In this process, research studies will provide educational opportunities to undergraduate, graduate and post-doctoral students. In return, the education of these students will provide a core group of individuals who can participate in the research activities. As a result, we will prepare ourselves to become a National Program of Excellence in Biomedical Computing. In order for our pre- NPEBC to develop into an NPEBC, we will attain the following objectives:
Project I: Mechano-Electric Feedback in the Heart
P.I.s: Trayanova (Biomedical Engineering) and Fauci (Mathematics)
Project II: Integrative Modeling of Bone Adaptation - Incorporation of Hierarchical Time and Length Scales
P.I.s: Hart (Biomedical Engineering), Nauman (Biomedical Engineering)
Project III: Interactions Between Pulmonary Mechanical Behavior and Surfactant Molecular Dynamics
P.I.s: Gaver (Biomedical Engineering), Lacks (Chemical Engineering)
Project: Structure and Dynamics of DNA
P.I.s: Thomas Bishop (Environmental Health Sciences), Ricardo Cortez (Mathematics), Oleksandr Zhmudsky (CCS)
Project: Dynamics of Interfaces in Visoelastic Fluids
P.I.s: Donald Gaver (Biomedical Engineering), Daniel DeKee (Chemical Engineering), Ali El-Afif (CCS), Ricardo Cortez (Mathematics)
Project: Computational Neuroscience/Electrobiology
P.I.s: Natalia Trayanova (Biomedical Engineering), Jeffrey Tasker (Cell and Molecular Biology) Alexander Komendantov (CCS).
Project: Surface and Interface Processes
P.I.s: Ulrike Diebold (Physics), Daniel Lacks (Chemical Engineering), Igor Kuyanov (CCS).