About NIMBioS
NIMBioS Mission
A major goal of mathematical models and analysis in biology is to provide insight into the complexities arising from the non-linearity and hierarchical nature of biological systems. Primary goals of NIMBioS will be to foster the maturation of cross-disciplinary approaches in mathematical biology and foster the development of a cadre of researchers who are capable of conceiving and engaging in creative and collaborative connections across disciplines to address fundamental and applied biological questions. Our vision for NIMBioS is to efficiently utilize NSF funding: 1) to address key biological questions by facilitating the assembly and productive collaboration of interdisciplinary teams; and 2) to foster development of the critical and essential human capacity to deal with the complexities of the multi-scale systems that characterize modern biology.
We plan a variety of routes to achieve the above goals, based upon the prior successes of our leadership team in developing new interdisciplinary collaborations nationally and internationally, and on the successful efforts at other Centers. Initially, we will develop a series of small working groups on emphasis areas at several levels of biological organization that will benefit from interdisciplinary efforts (human origins, infectious disease management in systems involving wildlife hosts, multi-scale analysis of cellular processes, intragenomic conflict). Some groups will be formed in response to requests from a government agency partner. These initial emphasis areas will then be expanded, based upon proposals from the research community and collaborative efforts with industry and government agency partners. Workshops assembling larger groups of researchers will assess somewhat broader problems, with dual goals of fostering language-building across disciplines and defining specific issues to be addressed by future working groups.
Human capacity building will be fostered through: direct mentoring of new researchers (including undergraduate and graduate students and post-doctoral fellows); outreach efforts in collaboration with professional societies to educate biologists about mathematical and computational approaches found to be broadly useful in biological application; connections to institutions serving under-represented groups; a ‘research experience for undergraduates’ program that will incorporate high school teachers; and varying levels of tutorial workshops designed to enlighten biologists about key quantitative methods – for example, the application of high performance computing methods to analyze biological problems which involve large data sets, spatial information, and dynamics. At the same time, we will assist mathematicians to identify new mathematical challenges arising from current biological research.
Broader Impacts: The nature of the questions addressed by NIMBioS will span all of biology, thus impacting both basic and applied science. These impacts will necessarily be broad, ranging from specific models and applications (physiological integration, disease projection, reserve design) to fundamental questions about human origins, biosphere functioning, and the emergence of biological patterns at diverse scales. NIMBioS will become a primary location for the rapid analysis of numerous questions of direct public policy concern, from the impacts of biofuel development, to the ongoing challenges of invasions of non-native species, to global change issues related to human activity. As a specific initial venture to address national needs, we will collaborate with Great Smoky Mountains National Park to develop methods of particular interest for natural area management that will be transferable to numerous U.S. locations.
Mathematical biology has to date benefited from the large impact of relatively few individuals and programs that have trained the vast majority of active researchers at this interface. NIMBioS will foster the next step: continuing the development of individuals trained at this interface, but also fostering the development of entire programs that are equipped to educate the array of mathematically competent, biologically knowledgeable and computationally adept researchers needed to address the vast array of challenging questions in this century of biology. Fostering high quality interdisciplinary programs, focused particularly on underrepresented groups, will be a major emphasis of NIMBioS.
