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SUMMER 2006
Where Talents Converge, By Plan and By Chance
by Carole VanSickle

Setting its talented and visionary occupants loose in an innovative architectural space, the Paul D. Coverdell Center for Biomedical and Health Sciences aims to take interdisciplinary research in new and productive directions.

The perennial campaign slogan of late senator Paul D. Coverdell was a straightforward “Coverdell works!” And his newest memorial, the Paul D. Coverdell Center for Biomedical and Health Sciences, promises to prove worthy of the “soft-spoken workhorse” — as colleagues described him — whose beliefs in education steered his lifelong efforts in the Georgia Senate, the United States Senate and the Peace Corps.

The new facility houses specialists from a multitude of disciplines, ranging from disease and immunology experts to mathematicians and engineers, all of whom are already involved in biomedically important research and committed to collaboration — and not just with colleagues in their own fields. Interdisciplinary research is the driving concept behind the Center, said David Lee, the University of Georgia’s vice president for research.

Interdisciplinary research brings multiple angles to scientific discovery. For example, a team interested in a disease such as malaria — caused by a parasite that is transmitted from person to person by mosquitoes — could incorporate the work of scientists specializing in insects, parasites, and the human immune system, as well as other relevant areas of inquiry.

“The answers to today’s most pressing questions are most likely to be found between disciplines,” said Regina Smith, associate vice president for research at UGA. “By creating arenas like the Coverdell facility where faculty can interact and collaborate with those unlike themselves, we acquire pieces of scientific puzzles not otherwise accessible. Universities and funding programs alike now realize that interdisciplinary efforts represent the zeitgeist now and into the future.”

“When you assemble a critical mass of innovative collaborators, there is no telling what they’ll produce,” agreed Mike Strand, an entomology professor whose own work spans a spectrum of fields and applications, from the genetics of insects used in natural pest control programs in the Southeastern United States to health issues for human populations around the world.

Consider neuroscience, which incorporates psychology, medicine, engineering and mathematics in order to study the brain. Jim Lauderdale (a professor of cellular biology) and Andrew Sornborger (a professor of mathematics and engineering) illustrate how neuroscience thrives on interdisciplinary collaboration. “I use live model organisms — mice and zebrafish, for example — to study how we sense the world around us. As part of this research, we look for very small changes in brain activity following certain stimuli, such as flashing lights or exposure to pungent compounds like ginger or peppermint,” said Lauderdale, who hopes to use the information to develop therapies for chronic pain and a genetic defect that causes early cataracts and glaucoma. “If we understand the circuits that govern pain response and the ways in which circuits in the retina respond to this genetic defect or even to just plain aging, we can go in and fix it. But to understand it, we’ve got to be able to see it, and that’s where Andrew comes in.”

Sornborger specializes in the analysis of “noisy” data — picking out patterns in complex neurological images of Lauderdale’s test animals. “The brain is a noisy place,” Sornborger said. “That animal is alive — the whole time we’re working with its responses to a specific stimulus, in the background its brain is doing lots of other things — perhaps thinking ‘What am I doing here and why is this guy blinking lights at me?’ among them. I help distinguish responses to stimulation from the noise.”

With his joint appointments in mathematics and engineering, Sornborger’s expertise is an excellent fit with the Coverdell community. “I already am involved in several different kinds of imaging collaborations with various people within [several of the units to be housed in Coverdell],” he said. “My bench is right next to Jim’s and just a few feet away from several other co-investigators, which is great because now we can get together easily and just run downstairs to try new things out in the bioimaging facility.” Both professors are members of the Developmental Biology Group (DBG) and the Biomedical and Health Sciences Institute (BHSI) in the Coverdell facility.

Moreover, “as we develop new techniques to look at the aging retina and other kinds of tissues,” said Lauderdale, “I think that Andrew’s skills will become vital to more and more people’s research.” Sornborger has already begun working with several other members of the Coverdell community who are also interested in using neurobiology to investigate everything from eating behaviors to epilepsy.

Strand, who holds joint appointments in entomology and genetics, is another example of the facility’s finely orchestrated mix of disciplines. He works with statisticians, other entomologists, immunologists and developmental biologists to study, for example, the ways in which insects can affect the spread of disease. In a project to study malaria, all three primary investigators are members of multiple units in the Coverdell community. While Strand examines interactions between the malaria parasite and its host — a mosquito — colleague Don Champagne focuses on the insect’s salivary proteins and the ways in which they permit its bite to infect a human and Mark Brown investigates malarial infiltration of the insect’s reproductive cycle.

Champagne and Brown are also entomology professors, but each focus on a different aspect of malaria — not just on the bug that carries it. “The whole time we’re looking at the same processes, but in different directions,” said Strand. “And it is all pertinent to populations and problems that nearly every member of the Center for Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases (CTEGD) is involved with in some form or fashion, whether through population studies, shared bioassays or disease-transmission studies. Being here puts me in close proximity to investigators across the spectrum.”

When working within a large institution, researchers often assemble themselves into professional or issue-oriented entities. The Coverdell building is designed to enable a new kind of assembly — one that brings representatives from several of these entities together, around a core facility and support system, for simultaneously sharpening their focus and broadening their individual and group research objectives. The building houses people from three centers, one institute, one college, and one group, as well as a $2.3-million bioimaging suite and, in the basement, a rodent barrier facility accessible from the labs [see sidebar on page 17].

Coverdell tenants include:

CTEGD focuses on the study of “orphan diseases,” infections that predominantly affect the poor in developing countries and that do not get much attention from researchers, the drug industry, and the public in developed countries. Nevertheless, “orphan diseases are major global problems,” said Dan Colley, a UGA immunology professor and head of the center. “Over a million children die of malaria every year, but because they don’t all die at once — as in a tsunami situation — the disease is largely overlooked but has huge impact on human suffering and economics.”

There are no more than two or three people within CTEGD that come from any one discipline, but they all share the common goal of combining their knowledge and work — in immunology, parasitology, bioinformatics (the electronic analysis of large amounts of biological data), entomology and other areas of biology — to pinpoint weaknesses in microbial defenses and methods of treatment for afflicted populations.

“We study everything from the parasites that cause malaria and African sleeping sickness to the bugs that transmit them and the behaviors of the people who become infected with them. But this is the first time we’re all in real conjunction with each other in the same space, so I’m eager to see our productivity grow with closer interactions,” said Colley. Moreover, in Coverdell, this phenomenon at CTEGD need not be limited to its members alone.

Developmental biology involves more “discovery science” than the work of CTEGD and others, said Nancy Manley, a genetics professor who heads the group. “We incorporate a broad interest in developmental biology and developmental genetics rather than focus on a specific mission or disease.”

Though their investigative strategies may often be dramatically different, representatives of DBG moving into the Coverdell facility do have common needs as scientists. All of them use animal models, and some researchers use mouse models to investigate areas that range from epilepsy to congenital blindness while others analyze fruit-fly behavior to learn about the neural implications of obesity.

Coverdell’s support services, including the animal and bioimaging facilities will not only assist but also enrich these researchers’ work, said Manley. “The MRI [magnetic resonance imaging] machines can actually take pictures of different parts of the mice without our having to sacrifice them. One of the difficulties in aging research, for example, has been that you have to keep animals for a long period of time. If you keep starting over with a different mouse to investigate the changes of aging, you lose continuity in your work.”

BHSI’s membership of over 160 researchers across the campus includes many members of CTEGD and DBG, and its programs draw on all members to create a richer and universally accessible database of information. “BHSI was formed to initiate and enhance interdisciplinary communication,” said Harry Dailey, director of the institute and professor of microbiology, biochemistry and molecular biology, and it has created some very significant joint endeavors already. In fact, said Dailey, BHSI served as an “incubator” for the College of Public Health, as the master’s of public health (MPH) degree was first created within BHSI, then rolled over to CPH at the new college’s inception.

“But in addition to encouraging these interactions between our members, we also focus on communicating with the public,” said Dailey. “If I develop a drug that cures a disease but I can’t get people to take it, then I’ve wasted my time. So we’re interested in helping people trained in journalism and public relations to learn to communicate with the scientific community, and vice versa.”

BHSI researchers work closely with members of the CPH and the Center for Health and Risk Communication, both of them tenants of Coverdell, to translate the results of biomedical research for relevant publications, organizations and communities. For example, BHSI sponsors a series of lectures, given by teams of university scholars and outside scientists, on “hot” topics such as bird flu and health considerations for foreign travel.

BIRC facilities are open to all university faculty to do research in imaging-related areas, said Steve Miller, professor of psychology and director of the center. “Fifteen or so faculty have already identified themselves, and we expect that number to grow as the researchers in Coverdell interact with each other and recognize the value of our magnet and other aspects of the system.”

At present the BIRC’s use is largely in brain imaging, which allows researchers to investigate topics ranging from thought pathways to visual images of the brain’s surface. “Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) takes advantage of differing levels of oxygen in the brain,” said Miller. “If I ask you a question, certain areas of your brain will activate — in order to process the question and recall information that you’ll use to develop an answer — and oxygen-rich blood flows into different parts of your brain.” Researchers measure changes in the magnetic properties of this response and develop “pictures” of the thought process. This technique can be used to study everything from schizophrenia to dishonesty.

BIRC also has resources for tissue imaging, which is of interest to researchers studying how the aging process affects bone and muscle composition; and an ultrasound system. Magnetic resonance technology can be used for treating animals in UGA’s veterinary hospital as well as for other research.

CHRC combines the expertise of faculty in disciplines from speech communication to computer programming, said Vicki Freimuth, professor of communication and head of CHRC. It supports the other members of the Coverdell facility while maintaining its individuality and instigating new projects, both within the unit and with others. “We’re integrally involved with BHSI and working within the research community and with a lay audience to help the two interact in a productive manner,” Freimuth said.

“Health communications is about learning how people process information about their health and well-being, whether they receive it from a doctor, a magazine article or a television commercial,” Freimuth said. “For example, if you want to prevent kids from smoking you may need to avoid the rational message about health risks that would likely convince an adult because kids tend to be more about feeling and doing than logic. You have to figure out how your audience is making decisions, and then adjust your message to fit the target.”

Freimuth and her team recently received a grant from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to create a new UGA entity — the Southern Center for Communication, Health and Poverty. This center will focus on improving the health of the poor and near-poor living in the southern United States by means of improved health communications and marketing. “The poor are more prone to almost every health risk and disease,” she said. “Communication and marketing can reduce these gaps, but not if the message is irrelevant or culturally inappropriate.”

The office of the dean of CPH and one of the college’s three departments are housed in Coverdell. “We decided that the department of health administration, biostatistics, and epidemiology should be in the building largely because of the flexible and dynamic environment,” said Phillip Williams, interim dean of CPH. “We’re a young college, and that one department will expand into three separate entities as we grow, so the ‘organic’ aspects of Coverdell will be ideal for this expanding department.” Interactions between epidemiology — the study of the relationship between diseases and their causes — and biostatistics — he development of new statistical methods for examining human health data — and other Coverdell members will enhance the expansion of CPH and further the interests of the other CPH units throughout the community, he said.

The college works most closely with BHSI and CTEGD because of the worldwide human health implications of their research. “We can help prevent the global spread of diseases through our research like the researchers in CTEGD and BHSI,” said Williams, “and — in conjunction with that role — we can also look at the affected target populations as a whole and find relationships between where and how people live and work and their associated health issues.”

CHC will also work closely with CPH. “Health policy, along with our department of health promotion and behavior, is important in developing programs of prevention, for which effective communication is hugely important,” Williams said.

A basic purpose of CPH, of course, is the training of public health professionals, and it offers bachelors, masters and doctoral degrees. Residence at Coverdell will aid this mission too, he added, as students’ interactions with communications experts and researchers there should enhance their educational experience and yield a highly versatile graduating class.

The tenants of the Coverdell facility represent a large number of disciplines and perspectives, as each individual researcher brings a unique focus to the communal enterprise and also a network of colleagues that extends far beyond the walls of the building and deep into the university’s research infrastructure.

But at Coverdell itself, the coming together of disciplines and perspectives is made even more likely by the building’s architecture, which aims to enable scientific and social interactions. All of the lab space is open and “flexible,” which will allow scientists to move around the areas in accordance with the locations of their current co-investigators. Furthermore, the halls on the second and third floors — where the labs are located — have stools, whiteboards, comfortable chairs and tables so that whenever inspiration strikes some chatting colleagues, they’re never far from the proverbial napkin.

And they’re going to chat. There’s no way around it. “You cannot get into or out of Coverdell without running into people,” said BHSI’s Dailey. “Some of the best science is born over a cup of coffee, when you can relax and talk with a colleague about what you are doing, and this is a mindset that drove the design of this building.”

CTEGD’s Colley agrees, but he also noted that numerous new situations, aided by the Center’s architecture, will be deliberate. “Interdisciplinary studies are all about creating new disciplines to solve new problems,” he said, “and this building is a new, dynamic piece of architecture designed to make unlikely interactions possible. It is our responsibility as tenants to utilize all aspects of this resource to the fullest — and that includes interacting with each other both formally and informally.”

All in all, concluded Lee, “this is an amazing facility — a new and imaginative material resource. But the architecture will only act to enhance a precious human resource — the researchers who are the heart of the Coverdell Center.” Given the environment and its talented denizens, together with the enlightened vision that inspired and now drives the place, it does not seem premature to say “Coverdell works.”

For more information access http://www.ovpr.uga.edu/coverdell.