Western Region IDeA Scientific Conference
Reno, Nevada June 5 – 7, 2011

Speakers

Visualization: Building Knowledge of and a Passion for Science
As our knowledge of living systems becomes increasingly complex and multidisciplinary, we need new mechanisms for imparting this knowledge in ways that promote both understanding and enthusiasm. Today we have the tools to visualize our understanding of science in compelling new ways that will accelerate the pace of discovery while recruiting more bright young minds to the sciences.

Robert A. Lue is Director of Life Sciences Education and Professor in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology at Harvard University, where he has received several teaching awards from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and the Division of Continuing Education. Rob was also the Dean of the Harvard Summer School of Arts and Sciences. Dr. Lue has chaired the Life Sciences Education Committee, which oversees the undergraduate curriculum across the five life sciences departments in the FAS Division of the Sciences. In 2004, Rob led the committee and faculty from across the division in the creation of a new introductory Life Sciences curriculum. This new “revolutionary” curriculum now serves as an integrated foundation for departmental course offerings in Molecular and Cellular Biology, Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Chemistry and Chemical Biology, and Human Evolutionary Biology. As part of this broad curricular revision, Rob also assembled a task force of faculty and technical professionals to take on the challenge of making innovative computing and visualization an integral part of the new curriculum as it evolves.

Dr. Marlene von Friedrichs-Fitzwater – Director of the Outreach Research and Education Program at UC Davis Cancer
Cancer Peer Navigation -- Art or Science?
Dr. von Friedrichs-Fitzwater's current areas of research interest include family communication and health communication. She teaches history-taking, interviewing and communication skills to first medical students. She is currently developing a cancer communication research program. 

Dr. von Friedrichs-Fitzwater's philosophy of education is based on empowering students through the use of a learner-centered model (and a patient-centered model in healthcare) to achieve their learning and development goals. Using a problem-based learning format, her style of teaching incorporates facilitating and coaching while allowing students to discover their own capabilities to solve problems, gain knowledge, and enhance skills.

Dr. Bert Boyer - Center for Alaska Native Health Research, Institute of Arctic Biology
The major objective of my research program is to understand the interaction between genetic and environmental risk and protective factors for obesity and diabetes in Yup'ik Eskimos. Identification of gene-environment interactions that influence energy balance should lead to a better understanding of the pathophysiological mechanisms contributing to body fat development and is also an important aspect of public health intervention. Our studies are designed and implemented within a community-based participatory research framework that involves extensive interactions with community leaders and health corporation representatives.

Dr. William Shuttleworth (bench) & Dr. Andrew Carlson (bedside) – University of New Mexico
Linking the bench to the bedside

Dr. Richard Larson– University of New Mexico
The Mountain West Research Consortium - The mission, the accomplishments, and the future.

Dr. Martin Schiller – University of Nevada Las Vegas
UNLV grant club fosters community, mentorship, and collaborative research

Dr. Martin Schiller – University of Nevada Las Vegas
The bio-toolkit.com suite of bioinformatics tools for predicting new functions in proteins and mechanisms of disease. 

Dr. Deborah Helitzer – University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center
Program Evaluation Workshop
This interactive workshop will address the need for program evaluation for INBRE/COBRE programs.  Participants will be exposed to basic information about program evaluation, including the opportunities, benefits and approaches.  An example of a logic model, one of the tools used to provide a framework for evaluation plans, will be presented.  Participants will break into teams and spend most of the workshop working with the model as a skeleton upon which to articulate their own assumptions, resources, program activities, intended outcomes and long term impact.

Dr. Meggin McIntosh – Emphasis on Excellence, Inc.
Time Management

Dr. Grant Hennig – University of Nevada School of Medicine
Movements of the gastrointestinal tract play an important role in digestion. However the tools to examine these movements have not kept pace with advances in acquisition hardware.  In this presentation, I will outline the use of spatio-temporal mapping technologies to better analyze and describe the movements of the gastrointestinal system.  These analysis methods can be used across a wide variety of imaging data, from subcellular particles to whole animal recordings. (COBRE P20RR018751:  Project 1, Core D & INBRE P20 RR-016464).

Dr. Thuc (Tim) Le – Nevada Cancer Institute
Despite the ubiquitous roles of lipids in biology, the detection of lipids has traditionally relied on invasive techniques, population measurements, or nonspecific labeling. A new imaging technique known as coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering (CARS) microscopy is allowing non-invasive and label-free visualization of lipids. CARS microscopy is capable of chemically selective, highly sensitive, and high-speed imaging of lipid-rich structures with submicron three-dimensional spatial resolution. The broad applications of CARS microscopy to the studies of lipid biology in cell cultures, tissue biopsies, and model organisms will be presented. Translational applications of CARS microscopy to clinical studies of cancer and lipid diseases will also be discussed. (INBRE P20 RR-016464)

Dr. Cheryl Aine - The Mind Research Network, Albuquerque, NM
“Neural Mechanisms of Schizophrenia:  Use of Multiple Neuroimaging Tools to Examine Dysfunctions in Neural Integration” The unifying theme of the MRN COBRE is the study of schizophrenia as a disorder characterized by abnormalities in structural, functional, and effective connectivity between cortical and subcortical brain regions, producing abnormalities in the integration of information across distributed brain circuits. We hypothesize that the novel combination of non-invasive neuroimaging techniques (e.g., sMRI, fMRI, DTI, MRS, EEG and MEG) will provide an unprecedented view of the neuronal pathologies that underlie the core cognitive dysfunctions of schizophrenia. These span a range of cognitive processes, beginning with a failure of basic inhibitory processes (Project 1), to failure of sensory integration (Project 2), and memory integration (Project 3) to general intellectual decline (Project 4). The focus of this talk is on the Data Acquisition and Image Analysis Cores which support each of the four COBRE projects. 1P20 RR021938-01 (COBRE)

Ms. Faye Schilkey – National Center for Genome Resources
Next Generation Sequencing Resources in the Wild West and Beyond