{"id":4714,"date":"2015-02-10T11:03:28","date_gmt":"2015-02-10T16:03:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/?p=4714"},"modified":"2015-02-16T16:58:32","modified_gmt":"2015-02-16T21:58:32","slug":"2-5-million-burroughs-wellcome-fund-grant-promotes-cross-discipline-communication","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/2015\/2-5-million-burroughs-wellcome-fund-grant-promotes-cross-discipline-communication\/","title":{"rendered":"$2.5 million Burroughs Wellcome Fund Grant Promotes Cross-Discipline Communication"},"content":{"rendered":"

What did the computational scientist say to the biomedical researcher? Not much, unless the two share some common knowledge and language.<\/p>\n

As big data becomes central to biomedical research, more scientists\u2014from both fields\u2014are recognizing the need for those who do the data analysis to be able to speak the same language as those who conduct the laboratory research. To assist in this cross-training, the Burroughs Wellcome Fund<\/a> (BWF) has recently awarded large grants to four institutions, including Dartmouth\u2019s Geisel School of Medicine.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can do all sorts of cool computational stuff, but until you can solve an important biological problem, it\u2019s just game playing,\u201d says Scott Williams, PhD, a professor of genetics at Geisel and a population geneticist and international expert in the genetics of health disparities. In his leadership roles at Dartmouth\u2019s Institute for Quantitative Biomedical Sciences<\/a> (iQBS), he works closely with faculty and students to promote interdisciplinary research and education.<\/p>\n

Williams and his colleague Carmen Marsit, PhD, an associate professor of pharmacology and toxicology, are co-directors of the $2.5-million BWF training grant. Marsit\u2019s own research is interdisciplinary, too, as he uses biomarkers and genetic data to study the epidemiology of cancers and other diseases.<\/p>\n

The BWF grant will support Geisel\u2019s new Big Data in the Life Sciences training program, which will be available to select PhD students enrolled in the Quantitative Biomedical Sciences (QBS) program. Launched in 2011, the QBS program is already distinguished nationally for its intensive multidisciplinary coursework in biostatistics, bioinformatics, and molecular epidemiology.<\/p>\n

The Big Data in the Life Sciences track will offer additional, integrated training in the quantitative, population, and basic biomedical sciences, and require courses on the principles of physiology, biochemistry, and molecular and cellular biology. Students in the new track will also complete a rotation in a biomedical laboratory to aid in their understanding of laboratory science concepts, designs, and limitations.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith this grant, Dartmouth\u2019s existing strength in quantitative biology is being further integrated with\u2014and extending the reach of\u2014its basic science laboratories,\u201d says Victoria McGovern, PhD, senior program officer at BWF. \u201cThis is going to give PhD students a chance to make outsized contributions to the world\u2019s understanding of big, big problems.\u201d<\/p>\n

The goal is to fully integrate quantitative and basic biomedical scientists, say Marsit and Williams, facilitating stronger collaborations in order to maximize the potential of big data to improve human health.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith this additional training, they\u2019re going to be able to communicate better with their collaborators in the basic sciences and move projects forward more quickly,\u201d says Marsit.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t solve important problems by being insular,\u201d says Williams. \u201cYou have to be able to communicate effectively across disciplines.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A grant from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund will help facilitate stronger collaborations between computational scientists and biomedical researchers in order to maximize the potential of big data to improve human health. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":4717,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[13,1],"tags":[421,132,518,420,517,516,46,515,51],"class_list":["post-4714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-donor-impact","category-news","tag-big-data","tag-carmen-marsit","tag-collaboration","tag-data-science","tag-education","tag-interdisciplinary-training","tag-iqbs","tag-qbs","tag-scott-williams","author-13"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2015\/02\/williams-marsit.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4r3h1-1e2","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4714"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4714\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4718,"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4714\/revisions\/4718"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}