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Four individually accomplished investigators, in four labs, are working toward one goal. The URMC is increasing collaboration among its scientists in order to move biomedical research further, faster. In the process, it’s winning support from the National Institutes of Health.

Deborah J. Fowell, PhD, is very familiar with Leishmania major, a particularly nasty parasite that infects the skin of twelve million people around the world, including more than seven hundred US soldiers who returned from Iraq with “Baghdad boil.” David J. Topham, PhD, is well known for all things-influenza. MinSoo Kim, PhD, is pretty handy at turning living T-cells different colors with beams of light. And James F. Miller, PhD, likes to sit in on cross-talk between T-cells and the molecules that help push them into action.

Since the early days of Kodak, Xerox, and Bausch & Lomb, Rochester-area innovators have been making astounding discoveries in optics and imaging. Researchers at the University of Rochester are beginning a major study that will add to the region’s imaging expertise, while also advancing global understanding of how the body’s immune system works.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded a five-year, $9 million Research Program Project Grant (PO1) to scientists in the School of Medicine and Dentistry to adapt and develop cutting-edge imaging techniques, allowing them to view the immune system while it is fighting infection and disease.

The University of Rochester has provided an advanced look of its new data visualization lab, one of the centerpieces of its commitment to apply high performance computing and data science approaches to solve scientific problems. The lab creates the immersive visual experience necessary to allow researchers to understand and manipulate large and complex sets of scientific information.

University of Rochester Medical Center researchers have won a $3 million grant to support influenza research. The award from the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases is going to support ongoing research by New York Influenza Center of Excellence, a 7-year-old flu research center led by URMC scientists John Treanor M.D. and David Topham, Ph.D..

This award is an acknowledgement of the highly productive contributions our center has made to the overall understanding of how the immune response to flu is regulated, Treanor said.