Author: ovprweb

The Georgia Genomics Facility and Illumina will offer a “Next-Generation Sequencing and Data Analysis Workshop” at the College of Veterinary Medicine, Tuesday, Nov. 17, 8 a.m. to noon. The workshop is free to UGA participants.

The workshop will cover sample preparation and examples of projects via a Powerpoint presentation, and intermittently switch to BaseSpace® (a cloud platform for data storage and analysis) for interactive demonstration of app launches and visualization of results.

Illumina experts will guide you through project planning including:

RNA-Seq
– Experimental Design
–  Library Prep Considerations
– Tools and Algorithms for RNA-Seq Analysis
– Intro to BaseSpace® and Hands-On Analysis

Metagenomics
-Next-Generation Microbiology
– Sample Extraction, Library Prep and Data-Analysis Options
– 16S Metagenomics Analysis in BaseSpace
– Viral Metatranscriptomics
– Shotgun Metagenomics

Visit www.illumina.com/basespace to create a BaseSpace account and use Illumina’s data sets, or upload your own RNAseq data to participate.

When: Tuesday, November 17, 2015, 8:00 AM – 12:00 PM
Where: UGA College of Veterinary Medicine, 501 D.W. Brooks Drive, Room H203, Athens, GA 30602
Cost: Free UGA participant/$20 Non-UGA participant

Who should attend: Anyone interested in learning about next-generation sequencing and data analysis.

More Information: Please contact Dr. Myriam Belanger, belanger@uga.edu

Workshop Requirements: This is a hands-on workshop. Participants are required to bring their own laptops or tablets. Free Wi-Fi access will be provided to participants. UGA participants will be required to access the PAWS-Secure network using their MyID login and password. Non-UGA participants will be provided with a secure login and password information the day of the workshop to access the Welcome_to_UGA network.

Registration: With an active GGF account go to https://gsle.ovpr.uga.edu/login.
Without a GGF account go to https://dna.uga.edu/ordering/new-customers/ to create an account first.
Deadline to Register: Friday, November 13, 2015, 3:00 PM. Register now. Space is limited.

Donald Harn, professor of infectious diseases and Georgia Research Alliance Distinguished Investigator, has been named the new director of UGA’s Faculty of Infectious Diseases. The group’s current director, Duncan Krause, plans to step down at the end of the calendar year following eight years of service in the position.

Harn received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles, and then completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard Medical School before joining the faculty in 1985. He became a full professor at the Harvard School of Public Health in 1994 where  served in the immunology and infectious diseases department.

“I am confident that Dr. Harn will provide the necessary leadership to take the Faculty of Infectious Diseases to the next level,” said David Lee, UGA Vice President for Research. “Dr. Krause has left him with an excellent foundation to work with. A primary goal has to be helping the faculty write and win more multi-investigator grants.”

The University of Georgia Faculty of Infectious Diseases was created in 2007 to address existing and emerging infectious disease threats more effectively by integrating multidisciplinary research in animal, human and ecosystem health. Researchers from across the university focus on epidemiology, host-pathogen interactions, the evolution of infectious diseases, disease surveillance and predictors and the development of countermeasures such as vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics. For more information about the Faculty of Infectious Diseases, see fid.uga.edu

UPDATE: The 2015 deadline has been extended to Friday, November 6, 2015.

As part of the University of Georgia (UGA) / University of Liverpool Partnership,  financial and logistical support will be provided for preliminary work toward full-fledged collaborative projects in research and scholarship between the two institutions.

The two institutions are offering seed grants / pump-priming grants to incentivize and catalyze research collaborations between the two institutions and encourage joint applications for ongoing sponsored funding to continue the collaborations. The funds will involve equal shares from both institutions of amounts up to $9000 / £5300 total. At UGA, the Office of the Vice President for Research (OVPR) will provide matching support for department/school/college contributions at a 2:1 ratio (e.g., maximum $3,000 from OVPR + $1,500 from unit). Funding for the Liverpool contribution will be provided on a match funding basis between the International Development Office (IDO) and the School or Faculty.

To be eligible for this competition, UGA and Liverpool faculty members must have initial conversations about the potential collaboration and work together on a single short proposal for this competition. This proposal will be submitted simultaneously to OVPR at UGA and to the IDO at Liverpool.

The initial review of applications will be performed by committees working independently at each institution. Based on these initial reviews, UGA and Liverpool will each confirm support contingent on support by the other partner institution. Only those proposals found acceptable by both institutions will be considered by a joint committee making final selections. When both have confirmed this support, funds will be made available to the partners by their respective institutions.

The funds will be made available over two years for videoconferencing, travel and living expenses (faculty, postdoc, student), preliminary data collection, feasibility studies, etc.

Deadline for submissions:  Extended from October 23 to November 6, 2015

Program Guidelines: https://research.uga.edu/docs/policies/iga/UGA-UOL-Guidelines.pdf

Dr. Lois Zitzow has joined OVPR as the new Director of University Research Animal Resources. Zitzow comes to UGA from the University of Chicago, where she worked as a clinical veterinarian. Her office is located in H364 Vet Med with other University Research Animal Resources administrative offices. She can be reached at lzitzow@uga.edu or 706-542-4173.

UGA  faculty now also have access to certain research core facilities at Emory University at the same rates and terms offered to Emory faculty.

Core facilities now available as a result of an agreement signed by the UGA Office of the Vice President for Research with Emory’s Robert W. Woodruff Health Sciences Center include cores at Emory School of Medicine, shared resources with Winship Cancer Institute and Pediatric Research Cores.

A complete list of the Emory cores available to UGA researchers can be found on the UGA Core Facilities web page.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is inviting applications that address specific challenges, ranging from antimicrobial resistance to digital financial services data and from vaccine manufacturing to Grand Challenges in Africa.

1) Grand Challenges Explorations is seeking innovative global health and development solutions and is now accepting proposals for its latest application round. Applicants can be at any experience level; in any discipline; and from any organization, including colleges and universities, government laboratories, research institutions, non-profit organizations, and for-profit companies. Initial grants will be US $100,000 each, and projects showing promise will have the opportunity to receive additional funding of up to US $1 million.

Proposals are being accepted online until November 11, 2015 for the following challenges:

• Novel Approaches to Characterizing and Tracking the Global Burden of Antimicrobial Resistance
• Explore New Solutions in Global Health Priority Areas
• Addressing Newborn and Infant Gut Health Through Bacteriophage-Mediated Microbiome Engineering
• Explore New Ways to Measure Delivery and Use of Digital Financial Services Data

2) New Interventions for Global Health: Vaccine Manufacturing. This challenge focuses on innovations in vaccine manufacturing platforms designed to lower production cost for vaccines that target diseases of great global burden and that are among the most costly to produce with current technologies.

3) In addition, the African Academy of Sciences and the New Partnership for African Development have launched Grand Challenges Africa in Nairobi, Kenya. This program joins others within the Grand Challenges family of grant programs supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and its partners. Grand Challenges Africa will build on the global success of Grand Challenges programs in India, Brazil, and South Africa, as well as the strong base of Africa Grand Challenges grantees already funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Grand Challenges Canada, and USAID.
New Global Health Innovations LinkedIn Forum

As a forum for sharing ideas, pursuing new opportunities and keeping abreast of new developments in the field of global health, The Gates Foundation together with Grand Challenges Canada has set-up a LinkedIn group. All you need to join is a free LinkedIn account – go to Global Health Innovations and click “Join.”

Sponsored Projects Administration (SPA), a merger of the former pre-award Office for Sponsored Programs and post-award Contracts and Grants, has been formed as a major step toward improving research administration at UGA. This merger, an initiative of the Provost’s Office with full support from the Office of the Vice President for Research and the Office of the Vice President for Finance and Administration, has been recommended by a number of faculty and administrator committees in recent years.

Unit-focused SPA teams containing both pre-award and post-award staff members will ensure a seamless continuum of grants services, from proposal development and submission to award establishment, administration, renewal and close-out. Teams will be jointly supervised by the Director of Pre-Award, Cathy Cuppett, and the Director of Post-Award, Allison Davis, who will ensure the continuance of state-of-the-art expertise in their respective areas. The two directors will report to Associate Vice President Carl Bergmann.

While numerous individuals have contributed to this significant development, we are particularly grateful to the pre- and post-award staffs for their hard work, many useful suggestions, collaborative spirit and commitment to enhancing the critically important support they provide to UGA’s growing research enterprise.

Co-Principal Investigators receiving academic credit on a project can now view information about their grants on the My Grants feature of the UGA Self-Service Website, employee.uga.edu. The change was effective Tuesday, Sept. 8.

Previously, only PIs could view account information. The change by OVPR and Finance & Administration is intended to encourage collaboration and reduce faculty burden.

Please note the account status report contains balance information on accounts for items that have been fully processed at UGA. Pending charges may not be reflected.

Questions and concerns about reports can be directed to the DFS Help Desk at 706-542-6763.

Units of the Offices of the Vice President for Research that are currently located in Boyd Graduate Studies Research Center will move to Tucker Hall, located at the corner of East Campus Road and Green Street, during the first two weeks of September.

These offices include:

– Research Compliance offices for Animal Care and Use, Human Subjects Office, Biosafety, Research Safety, Export Control, and Compliance Training

– GrantSmart

– Research Communications Office

– Office of Research Information Systems

– Office of Research Analytics and Online Administration

In addition, the Office of Biosafety, located in Riverbend North, and the Office of Research Safety, located in the Electronics Shop, will relocate to Tucker Hall.

If you need to contact personnel in these units, please email or phone ahead (see Directory https://research.uga.edu/directory1010/) to determine if they have already moved.

Innovation Gateway will remain on the 8^th floor of Boyd.  The Office for Sponsored Programs, now merged with Contracts & Grants to form the new Sponsored Projects Administration (SPA), relocated to Tucker Hall earlier this summer.

The Vice President for Information Technology is continuing a matching program to encourage faculty to use the new cluster for the Georgia Advanced Computing Resource Center (GACRC). This program was offered in FY15 and has been extended to FY16 with an additional $100,000 commitment from the Vice President for Information Technology. The program provides an additional computing node at no cost to researchers who purchase through the options available in the buy-in program. For more information, including details about the buy-in program, please contact Guy Cormier, Director of Research Computing, at gcormier@uga.edu.