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Comments on today’s (September 20, 2023) media briefing for the US National Science Foundation’s (NSF) inaugural Global Centers Competition awards

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I almost missed the briefing but the folks at the US National Science Foundation (NSF) kindly allowed me to join the meeting despite being 10 minutes late. Before launching into my comments, here’s what we were discussing,

From a September 20, 2023 NSF media briefing (received via email),

U. S. National Science Foundation Media Briefing on the Inaugural Global Centers Awards  

Please join the U.S. National Science Foundation this Wednesday September 20th from 12:30 – 1:30 p.m. EST for a discussion and Q&A on the inaugural Global Centers Competition awards. Earlier this week, NSF along with partner funding agencies from Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom — announced awards totaling $76.4 million for the inaugural Global Centers Competition. These international, interdisciplinary collaborative research centers will apply best practices of broadening participation and community engagement to develop use-inspired research on climate change and clean energy. The centers will also create and promote opportunities for students and early-career researchers to gain education and training in world-class research while enhancing diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility.

NSF will have a panel of experts on hand to discuss and answer questions about these new Global Centers and how they will sync talent across the globe to generate the discoveries and solutions needed to empower resilient communities everywhere.

What: Panel discussion and Q&A on NSF’s Global Centers

When: 12:30 – 1:30 p.m. EST, Wednesday, September 20th, 2023

Where: This briefing [is over.]

Who: Scheduled panelists include…

Anne Emig is the Section Chief for the Programs and Analysis Section in the National Science Foundation Office of International Science and Engineering

Dr. Tanya Berger-Wolf is the Principal Investigator for the Global Centers Track 1 project on AI and Biodiversity Change as well as the Director of the Translational Data Analytics Institute and a Professor of Computer Science Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering, as well as Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology at the Ohio State University

Dr. Meng Tao is the Principal Investigator for the Global Centers Track 1 project Global Hydrogen Production Technologies Center as well as a Professor, School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering at Arizona State University

Dr. Ashish Sharma is the Principal Investigator for the Global Centers Track 1 project Clean Energy and Equitable Transportation Solutions as well as the Climate and Urban Sustainability Lead at the Discovery Partners Institute, University of Illinois System

Note: This briefing is only open to members of the media

I’m glad to have learned about this effort and applaud the NSF for its outreach efforts. By comparison, Canadian agencies (I’m looking at you, Natural Sciences and Engineering Council of Canada [NSERC] and Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada [SSHRC]) have a lot to learn.

There’s a little more about the Global Centers Competition awards in a September 18, 2023 NSF news release,

Today [September 18, 2023], the U.S. National Science Foundation — along with partner funding agencies from Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom — announced awards totaling $76.4 million for the inaugural Global Centers Competition. These international, interdisciplinary collaborative research centers will apply best practices of broadening participation and community engagement to develop use-inspired research on climate change and clean energy. The centers will also create and promote opportunities for students and early-career researchers to gain education and training in world-class research while enhancing diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility.

“NSF builds capacity and advances its priorities through these centers of research excellence by uniting diverse teams from around the world,” said NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan. “Global Centers will sync talent across the globe to generate the discoveries and solutions needed to empower resilient communities everywhere.”

Global Centers are sponsored in part by a multilateral funding activity led by NSF and four partner funding organizations: Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), Canada’s Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) and Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), and the United Kingdom’s UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).

Both collectively and independently, the centers will support convergent interdisciplinary research collaborations focused on assessing and mitigating the impacts of climate change on society, people, and communities. Outcomes from Global Centers’ activities will inform and catalyze the development of innovative solutions and technologies to address climate change. Examples include: enhancing awareness of critical information; advancing and advocating for decarbonization efforts; creating climate change adaptation plans tailored to specific localities and groups; using artificial intelligence to study responses of nature to climate change; transboundary water issues; and scaling the production of next-generation technologies aimed at achieving net zero. Several projects include partnerships with tribal groups or historically Black colleges and universities that will broaden participation.

“The National Science Foundation Global Centres initiative provides students and researchers a platform to advance innovative and interdisciplinary research and gain education and training opportunities in world-class research while also enhancing diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility,” said NSERC President Alejandro Adem. “We at NSERC look forward to seeing the outcomes of the work being done by some of Canada and the world’s best and brightest minds to tackle one of the biggest issues of our time.”

The awards are divided into two tracks. Track 1 are Implementation grants with co-funding from international partners. Track 2 are Design grants meant to provide seed funding to develop the teams and the science for future competitions. Many additional countries are involved in Track 2 and will increase global engagement.

There are seven Track 1 Global Centers that involve research partnerships with Australia, Canada, and the U.K. Each Track 1 Global Center will be implemented by internationally dispersed teams consisting of U.S. and foreign researchers. U.S. researchers will be supported by NSF up to $5 million over four to five years, while foreign researchers will be supported by their respective country’s funding agency (CSIRO, NSERC, SSHRC and UKRI) with a comparable amount of funds.

There are 14 Track 2 Global Centers that are at the community-driven design stage. These centers’ teams involve U.S. researchers in partnerships with foreign researchers from any country. NSF will provide the U.S. researchers up to $250,000 of seed funding over a two-year period. These multidisciplinary, international teams will coordinate the research and education efforts needed to become competitive for Track-1 funding in the future.

“Our combined investment in Global Centers enables exciting researcher and innovation-led international and interdisciplinary collaboration to drive the energy transition,” said UKRI CEO, Dame Ottoline Leyser. “I look forward to seeing the creative solutions developed through these global collaborations.”

Kirsten Rose, Acting Chief Executive of CSIRO, said as Australia’s national science agency, CSIRO is proud to be part of a strong national contribution to solving this critical global challenge. “Partnering with the NSF’s Global Centers means Australia remains at the global forefront of work to build a clean hydrogen industry, build integrated and equitable energy systems, and partnering with regions and industries for a low emissions future.”

Track 1 (Implementation)

  • Global Hydrogen Production Technologies (HyPT) Center
    Grant number: 2330525
    Arizona State University and U.S. partner institutions: University of Michigan, Stanford University and Navajo Technical University.
    Quadrilateral research partnership with Australia, Canada, and the U.K.
    Critical and Emerging Tech: green hydrogen (renewable energy generation).
     
  • Electric Power Innovation for a Carbon-free Society (EPICS)
    Grant number: 2330450
    The Johns Hopkins University and U.S. partner institutions: Georgia Institute of Technology, University of California, Davis, and Resources for the Future.
    Trilateral research partnership with Australia and the U.K.
    Critical and Emerging Tech: renewable energy storage.
     
  • Global Nitrogen Innovation Center for Clean Energy and Environment (NICCEE)
    Grant number: 2330502
    University of Maryland Center for Environmental Sciences and U.S. partner institutions: New York University and University of Massachusetts Amherst.
    Trilateral research partnership with Canada and the U.K.
    Critical & Emerging Tech: green ammonia (bioeconomy + agriculture).
     
  • Understanding Climate Change Impacts on Transboundary Waters
    Grant number: 2330317
    University of Michigan and U.S. partner institutions: Cornell University, College of the Menominee Nation, Red Lake Nation and University of Wisconsin–Madison.
    Bilateral research partnership with Canada.
    Critical and Emerging Tech: N/A.
     
  • AI and Biodiversity Change (ABC)
    Grant number: 2330423 
    The Ohio State University and U.S. partner institutions: University of Pittsburgh and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
    Bilateral Research partnership with Canada.
    Critical and Emerging Tech: AI.
     
  • U.S.-Canada Center on Climate-Resilient Western Interconnected Grid
    Grant number: 2330582                
    The University of Utah and U.S. partner institutions: University of California San Diego, The University of New Mexico, and The Nevada System of Higher Education.     
    Bilateral Research partnership with Canada.
    Critical and Emerging Tech: AI.
     
  • Clean Energy and Equitable Transportation Solutions
    Grant number: 2330565
    University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and U.S. partner institutions: University Corporation for Atmospheric Research and Arizona State University.
    Bilateral Research partnership with the U.K.
    Critical and Emerging Tech: N/A
     

Track 2 (Design)

  • Developing Solutions to Decarbonize Emissions and Fuels
    Grant number: 2330509              
    University of Maryland, College Park.
    International collaboration with Japan, Israel, and Ghana.             
     
  • Enhanced Wind Turbine Blade Durability
    Grant number: 2329911              
    Cornell University.
    International collaboration with Canada, the UK, Norway, Denmark, and Spain.
     
  • Building the Global Center for Forecasting Freshwater Futures
    Grant number: 2330211
    Virginia Tech.
    International collaboration with Australia.
     
  • Climate Risk and Resilience: Southeast Asia as a Living Lab (SEALL)
    Grant number: 2330308
    University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
    International collaboration with Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore, and India.
     
  • Climate-Smart Food-Energy-Water Nexus in Small Farms
    Grant number: 2330505              
    The University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture.        
    International collaboration with Argentina, Brazil, Guatemala, Panama, Cambodia, and Uganda.
     
  • Center for Household Energy and Thermal Resilience (HEaTR)
    Grant number: 2330533              
    Cornell University.
    International collaboration with India, the U.K, Ghana, and Singapore.
     
  • Enabling interdisciplinary wildfire research for community resilience
    Grant number: 2330343              
    Oregon State University.
    International collaborations with Australia and the U.K.
     
  • SuReMin: Sustainable, resilient, responsible global minerals supply chain
    Grant number: 2330041              
    Northwestern University.
    International collaboration with Chile.
     
  • Nature-based Urban Hydrology Center
    Grant number: 2330413              
    Villanova University.
    International collaboration with Canada, the U.K, Switzerland, Ireland, Australia, Chile, and Turkey.
     
  • A multi-disciplinary framework to combat climate-induced desert locust upsurges, outbreaks, and plagues in East Africa
    Grand number: 2330452
    Georgia State University.
    International collaboration with Ethiopia.
     
  • US-Africa Research Center for Clean Energy
    Grant number: 2330437
    Georgia Institute of Technology.
    International collaborations with Rwanda.
     
  • Equitable and User-Centric Energy Market for Resilient Grid-interactive Communities
    Grant number: 2330504
    Santa Clara University.
    International collaboration with Canada.
     
  • Energy Sovereignty for Indigenous Peoples (ESIP)
    Grant number: 2330387
    University of North Dakota.
    International collaboration with Canada.
     
  • Blue Climate Solutions
    Grant number: 2330518              
    University of Rhode Island.
    International collaboration with Indonesia.

For Canadian researchers who are interested, there’s a National Science Foundation Global Centres webpage on the NSERC website, which answers a lot of questions about the programme from a Canadian perspective. The application deadline for both tracks was May 10, 2023 and there’s no information (as of September 20, 2023) about future competitions. Nice to see the social science and humanities included in the form of a funding agency. (I think this might be the one compliment I deliver to a Canadian funding initiative this year. 🙂

For American researchers, there’s the NSF’s Global Centers webpage; for UK researchers, there’s the United Kingdom’s Research and Innovation’s Global Centres in clean energy and climate change webpage; and for Australian researchers, there’s the CSIRO’s National Science Foundation Global Centers webpage. Application deadlines have passed for all of these competitions and there’s no information (as of September 20, 2023) about future competitions.

A few comments

News about local and international affairs (see Seth Borenstein’s September 20, 2023 Associated Press article “UN chief warns of ‘gates of hell’ in climate summit, but carbon polluting nations stay silent”) and one’s own personal experience with climate issues can be discouraging at times so it’s heartening to see these efforts. Kudos to the organizers of the Global Centers programme and I wish all the researchers success.

Given how new these centers are, it’s understandable that the panelists would be a little fuzzy about specific although they’ve clearly considered and are attempting to address issues such as sharing data, trust, and outreach to various stakeholders and communities.

I wish I’d asked about cybersecurity when they were talking about data. Ah well, there was my question about outreach to people over the age of 50 or 55 as so much of their planning was focused on youth. The panelists who responded (Dr. Tanya Berger-Wolf, Dr. Meng Tao, and Dr. Ashish Sharma) did not seem to have done much thinking about seniors/elders/older people.

I believe bird watching (as mentioned by one of the panelists) does tend to attract older people but citizen science or other hobbies/programmes mentioned may or may not be a good source for seniors outreach. Almost all science outreach tilts to youth including citizen science.

With the planet is not doing so well and with the aging populations in Canada, the US, many European countries, China, Japan, and I’m sure many others perhaps some new thinking about ‘inclusivity’ might be in order. One suggestion, start thinking about age groups. In the same way that 20 is not 30, is not 40, so 55 is not 65, is not 75. One more thing, perhaps take into account life experience. Something that gets forgotten is that a lot of the programmes that people take for granted and a lot of the technology people use today was developed in the 1960s (e.g. Internet). That old person? Maybe it’s someone who founded the UN’s Environment Program (I was teaching a nanotechnology course in a seniors programme and asked students about themselves; I was intimidated by her credentials).

In the end, this Global Center initiative is heartening news.

Documentary “NNI Retrospective Video: Creating a National Initiative” celebrates the US National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) and a lipid nanoparticle question

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i stumbled across an August 4, 2022 tvworldwide.com news release about a video celbrating the US National Nanotechnology Initiative’s (NNI) over 20 years of operation, (Note: A link has been removed),

TV Worldwide, since 1999, a pioneering web-based global TV network, announced that it was releasing a video trailer highlighting a previously released documentary on NNI over the past 20 years, entitled, ‘NNI Retrospective Video: Creating a National Initiative’.

The video and its trailer were produced in cooperation with the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI), the National Science Foundation and the University of North Carolina Greensboro.

Video Documentary Synopsis

Nanotechnology is a megatrend in science and technology at the beginning of the 21 Century. The National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) has played a key role in advancing the field after it was announced by President Clinton in January 2000. Neil Lane was Presidential Science Advisor. Mike Roco proposed the initiative at the White House in March 1999 on behalf of the Interagency Working Group on Nanotechnology and was named the founding Chair of NSET to implement NNI beginning with Oct. 2000. NSF led the preparation of this initiative together with other agencies including NIH, DoD, DOE, NASA, and EPA. Jim Murday was named the first Director of NNCO to support NSET. The scientific and societal success of NNI has been recognized in the professional communities, National Academies, PCAST, and Congress. Nanoscale science, engineering and technology are strongly connected and collectively called Nanotechnology.

This video documentary was made after the 20th NNI grantees conference at NSF. It is focused on creating and implementing NNI, through video interviews. The interviews focused on three questions: (a) Motivation and how NNI started; (b) The process and reason for the success in creating NNI; (c) Outcomes of NNI after 20 years, and how the initial vision has been realized.

About the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI)

The National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) is a U.S. Government research and development (R&D) initiative. Over thirty Federal departments, independent agencies, and commissions work together toward the shared vision of a future in which the ability to understand and control matter at the nanoscale leads to ongoing revolutions in technology and industry that benefit society. The NNI enhances interagency coordination of nanotechnology R&D, supports a shared infrastructure, enables leveraging of resources while avoiding duplication, and establishes shared goals, priorities, and strategies that complement agency-specific missions and activities.

The NNI participating agencies work together to advance discovery and innovation across the nanotechnology R&D enterprise. The NNI portfolio encompasses efforts along the entire technology development pathway, from early-stage fundamental science through applications-driven activities. Nanoscience and nanotechnology are prevalent across the R&D landscape, with an ever-growing list of applications that includes nanomedicine, nanoelectronics, water treatment, precision agriculture, transportation, and energy generation and storage. The NNI brings together representatives from multiple agencies to leverage knowledge and resources and to collaborate with academia and the private sector, as appropriate, to promote technology transfer and facilitate commercialization. The breadth of NNI-supported infrastructure enables not only the nanotechnology community but also researchers from related disciplines.

In addition to R&D efforts, the NNI is helping to build the nanotechnology workforce of the future, with focused efforts from K–12 through postgraduate research training. The responsible development of nanotechnology has been an integral pillar of the NNI since its inception, and the initiative proactively considers potential implications and technology applications at the same time. Collectively, these activities ensure that the United States remains not only the place where nanoscience discoveries are made, but also where these discoveries are translated and manufactured into products to benefit society.

…

I’m embedding the trailer here and a lipid nanoparticle question follows (The origin story told in Vancouver [Canada] is that the work was started at the University of British Columbia by Pieter Quilty.),

I was curious about what involvement the US NNI had with the development of lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) and found a possible answer to that question on Wikipedia The LNP Wikipedia entry certainly gives the bulk of the credit to Quilty but there was work done prior to his involvement (Note: Links have been removed),

…

A significant obstacle to using LNPs as a delivery vehicle for nucleic acids is that in nature, lipids and nucleic acids both carry a negative electric charge—meaning they do not easily mix with each other.[19] While working at Syntex in the mid-1980s,[20] Philip Felgner [emphasis mine] pioneered the use of artificially-created cationic lipids (positively-charged lipids) to bind lipids to nucleic acids in order to transfect the latter into cells.[21] However, by the late 1990s, it was known from in vitro experiments that this use of cationic lipids had undesired side effects on cell membranes.[22]

During the late 1990s and 2000s, Pieter Cullis of the University of British Columbia [emphasis mine] developed ionizable cationic lipids which are “positively charged at an acidic pH but neutral in the blood.”[8] Cullis also led the development of a technique involving careful adjustments to pH during the process of mixing ingredients in order to create LNPs which could safely pass through the cell membranes of living organisms.[19][23] As of 2021, the current understanding of LNPs formulated with such ionizable cationic lipids is that they enter cells through receptor-mediated endocytosis and end up inside endosomes.[8] The acidity inside the endosomes causes LNPs’ ionizable cationic lipids to acquire a positive charge, and this is thought to allow LNPs to escape from endosomes and release their RNA payloads.[8]

From 2005 into the early 2010s, LNPs were investigated as a drug delivery system for small interfering RNA (siRNA) drugs.[8] In 2009, Cullis co-founded a company called Acuitas Therapeutics to commercialize his LNP research [emphasis mine]; Acuitas worked on developing LNPs for Alnylam Pharmaceuticals’s siRNA drugs.[24] In 2018, the FDA approved Alnylam’s siRNA drug Onpattro (patisiran), the first drug to use LNPs as the drug delivery system.[3][8]

By that point in time, siRNA drug developers like Alnylam were already looking at other options for future drugs like chemical conjugate systems, but during the 2010s, the earlier research into using LNPs for siRNA became a foundation for new research into using LNPs for mRNA.[8] Lipids intended for short siRNA strands did not work well for much longer mRNA strands, which led to extensive research during the mid-2010s into the creation of novel ionizable cationic lipids appropriate for mRNA.[8] As of late 2020, several mRNA vaccines for SARS-CoV-2 use LNPs as their drug delivery system, including both the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine and the Pfizer–BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines.[3] Moderna uses its own proprietary ionizable cationic lipid called SM-102, while Pfizer and BioNTech licensed an ionizable cationic lipid called ALC-0315 from Acuitas.[8] [emphases mine]

You can find out more about Philip Felgner here on his University of California at Irvine (UCI) profile page.

I wish they had been a little more careful about some of the claims that Thomas Kalil made about lipid nanoparticles in both the trailer and video but, getting back to the trailer (approx. 3 mins.) and the full video (approx. 25 mins.), either provides insight into a quite extraordinary effort.

Bravo to the US NNI!

Vaccine as a salad

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A research project into growing vaccines in edible plants has been funded at the University of California at Riverside (UCR) according a September 16, 2021 news item on Nanowerk,

The future of vaccines may look more like eating a salad than getting a shot in the arm. UC Riverside scientists are studying whether they can turn edible plants like lettuce into mRNA vaccine factories.

Messenger RNA or mRNA technology, used in COVID-19 vaccines, works by teaching our cells to recognize and protect us against infectious diseases.

One of the challenges with this new technology is that it must be kept cold to maintain stability during transport and storage. If this new project is successful, plant-based mRNA vaccines — which can be eaten — could overcome this challenge with the ability to be stored at room temperature.

The project’s goals, made possible by a $500,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, are threefold: showing that DNA containing the mRNA vaccines can be successfully delivered into the part of plant cells where it will replicate, demonstrating the plants can produce enough mRNA to rival a traditional shot, and finally, determining the right dosage.

Caption: Chloroplasts (magenta) in leaves expressing a green fluorescent protein. The DNA encoding for the protein was delivered by targeted nanomaterials without mechanical aid by applying a droplet of the nano-formulation to the leaf surface. Credit: Israel Santana/UCR

A September 16, 2021 UC Riverside news release (also on EurekAlert) by Jules Bernstein, which originated the news item, provides more information about the project (Note: A link has been removed),

“Ideally, a single plant would produce enough mRNA to vaccinate a single person,” said Juan Pablo Giraldo, an associate professor in UCR’s Department of Botany and Plant Sciences who is leading the research, done in collaboration with scientists from UC San Diego and Carnegie Mellon University. 

“We are testing this approach with spinach and lettuce and have long-term goals of people growing it in their own gardens,” Giraldo said. “Farmers could also eventually grow entire fields of it.”

Key to making this work are chloroplasts — small organs in plant cells that convert sunlight into energy the plant can use. “They’re tiny, solar-powered factories that produce sugar and other molecules which allow the plant to grow,” Giraldo said. “They’re also an untapped source for making desirable molecules.”

In the past, Giraldo has shown that it is possible for chloroplasts to express genes that aren’t naturally part of the plant. He and his colleagues did this by sending foreign genetic material into plant cells inside a protective casing. Determining the optimal properties of these casings for delivery into plant cells is a specialty of Giraldo’s laboratory. 

For this project Giraldo teamed up with Nicole Steinmetz, a UC San Diego professor of nanoengineering, to utilize nanotechnologies engineered by her team that will deliver genetic material to the chloroplasts. 

“Our idea is to repurpose naturally occurring nanoparticles, namely plant viruses, for gene delivery to the plants,” Steinmetz said. “Some engineering goes into this to make the nanoparticles go to the chloroplasts and also to render them non-infectious toward the plants.”

For Giraldo, the chance to develop this idea with mRNA is the culmination of a dream. “One of the reasons I started working in nanotechnology was so I could apply it to plants and create new technology solutions. Not just for food, but for high-value products as well, like pharmaceuticals,” Giraldo said. 

He is also co-leading a related project using nanomaterials to deliver nitrogen, a fertilizer, directly to chloroplasts, where plants need it most. 

Nitrogen is limited in the environment, but plants need it to grow. Most farmers apply nitrogen to the soil. As a result, roughly half of it ends up in groundwater, contaminating waterways, causing algae blooms, and interacting with other organisms. It also produces nitrous oxide, another pollutant. 

This alternative approach would get nitrogen into the chloroplasts through the leaves and control its release, a much more efficient mode of application that could help farmers and improve the environment. 

The National Science Foundation has granted Giraldo and his colleagues $1.6 million to develop this targeted nitrogen delivery technology.

“I’m very excited about all of this research,” Giraldo said. “I think it could have a huge impact on peoples’ lives.”

I wish the researchers the best of luck.

Heritage science at the University of Kentucky (US)

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Before launching into the news, there is very interesting terminology coming up (for a Canadian anyway). The University of Kentucky is also referred to as UK, not to be confused with the United Kingdom, which also uses those initials. As well, the reference to ‘commonwealth’ is a reference to the state of Kentucky’s full name. From the Commonwealth (U.S. State) Wikipedia entry, Note: Links have been removed,

Commonwealth is a term used by four of the 50 states of the United States in their full official state names. “Commonwealth” is a traditional English term for a political community founded for the common good.[1] The four states – Kentucky,[2] Massachusetts,[3] Pennsylvania,[4] and Virginia[5] – are all in the Eastern United States, and prior to the formation of the United States in 1776, were British colonial possessions (although Kentucky did not exist as an independent polity under British rule, instead being a part of Virginia). As such, they share a strong influence of English common law in some of their laws and institutions.[6][7]

On to the news. A November 5, 2021 University of Kentucky (UK) news release (also on EurekAlert but published November 8, 2021) by Lindsey Piercy, Alicia Gregory, and Ben Corwin describes what is being planned at the new EduceLab with a $14 million grant (Note 1: Links have been removed; Note 2: A video of the research team discussing EduceLab is embedded with the news release on the University of Kentucky website),

It’s the signature on a bourbon barrel — it’s the ancient footprints in Mammoth Cave.

Heritage science is all around us and has deep roots in the Commonwealth.

Kentucky’s story begins in prehistoric times, when mammoths roamed the Ohio River Valley at Big Bone Lick.

Now, thanks to a $14 million infrastructure grant from the National Science Foundation, the University of Kentucky is poised to tell that story in new, groundbreaking ways through the lens of heritage science.

“We are at a turning point,” Brent Seales, UK Alumni Professor in the Department of Computer Science, said. “Science and technology present a host of exciting opportunities to the heritage sector. They must not be wasted.”

For more than 20 years, Seales has been working to create and use high-tech, non-invasive tools to rescue hidden texts and restore them to humanity. Dubbed “the man who can read the unreadable,” he has garnered international recognition for his “virtual unwrapping” work to read damaged ancient artifacts — such as the Dead Sea Scrolls and Herculaneum papyrus rolls — without ever physically opening them.

Now, Seales is expanding his research.

Using the NSF infrastructure funding, he has gathered a team of experts from the College of Engineering and the College of Arts and Sciences to build EduceLab — UK’s vision for next-generation heritage science. The collaborative facility will focus on developing innovative artificial intelligence (AI) solutions for the unique challenges presented by cultural heritage objects.

Heritage science draws on engineering, the humanities and the sciences to enhance the understanding of our past, inform the present and guide our future. Ultimately, the goal is to enrich people’s lives and celebrate both the commonality and diversity of the human experience.

“The word Educe means ‘to bring out from data’ or ‘to develop something that is latent but not on its own explicit.’ That’s what we’ve been doing with our virtual unwrapping work. And that context has created an opportunity to expand the very focused question of, ‘Can we read what’s inside a scroll?’ to a broader question of, ‘What heritage science questions can we answer right here in Kentucky,’ Seales explained. “My goal is to rally some of the best researchers here around that theme and build a world-class laboratory that allows us to pose and then answer some of those questions.”

And the quest for answers has already begun.

“Here at UK, we are tremendously well positioned to bring in collaborations, because we have all major colleges in one contiguous campus,” Hugo Reyes-Centeno, an assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology, added. “I see tremendous potential to integrate quantitative analysis and new methodologies that will inform the theoretical perspectives that are the hallmark of the social sciences.”

Multimillion Dollar Renovation to Enhance William S. Webb Museum

EduceLab will function as a user facility for the heritage community and have its home base in UK’s William S. Webb Museum of Anthropology, located on Export Street in Lexington, next to the main campus.

Founded in 1931, the museum remains dedicated to enhancing knowledge about and preservation of the nation’s cultural heritage.

The Webb Museum houses a world-renowned archaeological collection from more than 250 properties listed on the National Register of Historic Places — including Native American, Revolutionary War- and Civil War-era sites.

The collections provide a link to the roots of the Commonwealth and its people. Additionally, the immense research archives provide educational services, practical training and research opportunities for the campus community and beyond — making it the ideal location for EduceLab.

“Within Kentucky, it’s probably a well-kept secret that we have some of the best collections that relate to this question of the first agricultural populations in Eastern North America. The Webb Museum, which is primarily a research center, is not your classic bricks and mortar display. We maintain the collections for the state of Kentucky for research purposes,” Crothers [George Crothers, Director, William S. Webb Museum of Anthropology] said. “This is going to significantly impact what we do in the museum, and in archaeology in general, because it’s providing us access to the most sophisticated and high-level equipment, which we didn’t have before.”

EduceLab has four parts: FLEX, BENCH, MOBILE and CYBER.

BENCH

Modern technology is key to understanding how relics of our past were made.

BENCH will work to acquire the instruments needed to conduct leading-edge materials science, which will help establish a comprehensive workflow.

“My role is to bring the perspective of materials characterization. As a materials engineer, I look at what materials are made of. That helps us understand how a specimen was made in the first place and the technology that was used to create it. And I apply that to metals and alloys or ceramics that are used in industry, but we can also apply that to cultural heritage artifacts,” John Balk, William T. Bryan Professor of Materials Engineering and associate dean for research and graduate studies in UK Engineering, said. “It’s definitely a new application space for me, but we can apply these scientific techniques and really learn about the material — the artifact — and put that in the right context of cultural heritage.”

FLEX

In 2016, Seales’ team developed the Volume Cartographer, a revolutionary computer program for locating and mapping 2D surfaces within a 3D object. The software pipeline is used with micro-CT to generate extremely high-resolution images — enabling the ability to read a document without ever needing to physically open it. The charred scroll from En Gedi was the first complete text to be revealed using the software.

While the first-of-its-kind software has profoundly impacted history and literature, not all damaged artifacts are created equal.

Seales and his team have often found it difficult to use equipment that is poorly suited for the odd shapes and sizes — so they decided to build their own.

“With the FLEX cluster, we will have a prototype environment where we can envision, build and test custom instrument configurations built around the heritage object under study,” Seales said. “That is truly a novel approach not seen anywhere else at the mid-scale level.”

MOBILE

It’s one thing to bring an object into the lab. It’s another to go to the object in the field.

By setting up in the parking lot of a museum or by collecting data at an archeological site, the MOBILE team will take EduceLab on the road.

Suzanne Smith, along with faculty members Sean Bailey and Mike Sama, will deploy the use of unmanned aerial systems for field campaigns. “And in that field campaign, we do all kinds of measurements from the air over a larger area,” Smith, director of UK Unmanned Systems Research Consortium, explained. “It’s using all different kinds of sensors that can give different perspectives on the shapes that are being measured, and we can even see through some of the materials — giving us the historical context of that whole area. It’s just such a bigger scale of where that history has happened.”

Additionally, the MOBILE team will use external displays for community involvement. “They can actually see this information coming in,” Smith said. “There are going to be exciting discoveries that happen in the moment, and the public will be able to be right there.”

MOBILE TO CYBER

While MOBILE oversees collecting data, CYBER will be tasked with generating and sharing the data.

As the link between MOBILE and CYBER, that’s where Corey Baker’s expertise in wireless communications comes in. CYBER will be critical when helping to further drive advancements in drone fleets.

“There are a lot of devices in use when it comes to the unmanned vehicles component. They will pick up data and transfer data. But many times, they may not have internet connectivity,” Baker, an assistant professor in computer science, said. “My research focuses on the question, when the internet is limited or nonexistent, how do you build applications and systems to disseminate information?”

Additionally, Baker believes technology should be an enabler not just for researchers, but for the entire community. “These types of projects are not just designed to produce something that looks fancy. But it’s designed to make a difference.”

Students Remain Key in Unlocking Sealed Secrets

Over the years, this team of UK faculty members has been as committed to developing students’ talents. By engaging in hands-on research, they’re able to determine an area of interest and jump start their careers. 

“I never would have imagined that I would go into academia to pursue some of the questions that always interested me. But if it were not for that undergraduate research experience that ultimately led me to Europe and to the discovery of this field of heritage science, I probably wouldn’t be here now,” Reyes-Centeno said. “The undergraduate research component is certainly something we’ll be continuing to develop for our students. Our students must have those opportunities.”

The Promise Moving Forward

Seales is considered the foremost expert in the digital restoration of cultural antiquities. To this day, his quest to uncover ancient wisdom is ever evolving.

Overcoming damage incurred by time is no small challenge. But Seales, and his dedicated team, are committed to conquering the seemingly impossible.

“We’re in a time now where our cultural heritage is the key to understanding and embracing our diversity,” he said. “Focusing on heritage science can be key to unlocking, in a positive way, how that heritage can help us understand each other, collaborate together and shape our future. We plan to keep showing the world what can be done, right here at UK.”

You can find out more about EduceLab here.

There’s no ‘I’ in team: coaching scientists to work together

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While it’s true enough in English where you don’t spell the word team with the letter ‘I’, that’s not the case in French where the word is ‘equipe’. it makes me wonder how many other languages in the world have an ‘I’ in team.

Moving on. This English language saying is true enough in its way but there is no team unless you have a group of ‘I’s’ and the trick is getting them to work together as a July 18, 2019 Northwestern University news release (received via email) about a new online training tool notes,

Coaching scientists to play well together

Free tool shows how to avoid fights over data and authorship conflicts   

‘You stole my idea’ or ‘I’m not getting credit for my work’ are common disputes
Only tool validated by research to help scientists collaborate smoothly
Many NSF [US National Science Foundation] and NIH [US National Institutes of Health] grants now require applicants to show readiness for team science
Scientists can’t do it on their own

CHICAGO — When scientists from different disciplines collaborate – as is increasingly necessary to confront the complexity of challenging research problems – interpersonal tussles often arise. One scientist may accuse another of stealing her ideas. Or, a researcher may feel he is not getting credit for his work or doesn’t have access to important data. 
 
“Interdisciplinary team science is now the state of the art across all branches of science and engineering,” said Bonnie Spring, professor of preventive medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “But very few scientists have been trained to work with others outside of their own disciplinary silo.”
 
The skill is critical because many National Institute[s] of Health and National Science Foundationgrants require applicants to show readiness for team science.
 
A free, online training tool developed by Northwestern — teamscience.net — has been been proven to help scientists develop skills to work with other scientists outside their own discipline. 
 
A new study led by Spring showed scientists who completed the program’s modules – called COALESCE – significantly boosted their knowledge about team science and increased their self-confidence about being able to successfully work in scientific teams. Most people who completed one or more modules (84%) said that the experience of taking the modules was very likely to positively impact their future research.
 
The study will be published July 18 [2019] in the Journal of Clinical and Translational Science.
 
There are few training resources to teach scientists how to collaborate, and the ones that are available don’t have evidence of their effectiveness. Teamscience.net is the only free, validated-by-research tool available to anyone at any time. 
 
Almost 1,000 of the COALESCE users opted voluntarily to respond to questions about the learning modules, providing information about how taking each module influenced team science knowledge, skills and attitudes.
 
‘You stole my idea’
 
The most common area of dispute among collaborating scientists is authorship concerns, such as accusations that one person stole ideas from another or that a contributor was not getting credit for his or her work, the study authors said. Other disputes arise around access to and analysis of data, utilization of materials or resources and the general direction of the research itself. Underlying all of these issues is a common failure to prepare for working collaboratively with other scientists. 
 
“Preparing in advance before starting to collaborate, often through the creation of a formal collaboration agreement document, is the best way to head off these types of disputes,” said Angela Pfammatter, assistant professor of preventive medicine at Feinberg and a coauthor on the paper.
  
Spring suggested “having scientists discuss their expectations of one another and the collaboration to prevent acrimonious conflicts.” 
 
Skills to play well together
 
These skills are critical to a successful scientific team, the authors said: 

The ability to choose team members who have the right mix of expertise, temperament and accessibility to round out a team. 
The ability to anticipate what could go wrong and to develop contingency plans in advance. 
The ability to manage conflict within the team 

The teamscience.net modules help scientists acquire these skills by letting them interact with different problem scenarios that can arise in team-based research. Scientists can try out different solutions and learn from mistakes in a safe, online environment. 
 
More than 16,000 people have accessed the resource in the past six years.  Demand for team science training is expected to increase as interdisciplinary teams set out to tackle some of science’s most challenging problems. 
 
Other Northwestern authors on the paper are Ekaterina Klyachko, Phillip Rak, H. Gene McFadden, Juned Siddique and Leland Bardsley. 
 
Funding support for COALESCE is from the National Institutes of Health, National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences grants 3UL1RR025741 and UL1TR001422 and its Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research.

i once got caught here on this blog between two warring scientists. My August 24, 2015 posting was a pretty standard one for me. Initially, it was one of my more minimalistic pieces with a copy of the text from a university news release announcing the research and a link to the academic paper. I can’t remember if the problem was which scientist was listed first and which was listed last but one of them took exception and contacted me explaining how it was wrong. (Note: These decisions are not made by me.) I did my best to fix whatever the problem was and then the other scientist contacted me. After the dust settled, I ended up with a dog’s breakfast for my posting and a new policy.

Getting back to COALESCE: I wish the Northwestern University researchers all the best as they look for ways to help scientists work together more smoothly and cooperatively.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Online, cross-disciplinary team science training for health and medical professionals: Evaluation of COALESCE (teamscience.net) by Bonnie Spring, Ekaterina A. Klyachko, Phillip W. Rak, H. Gene McFadden, Donald Hedeker, Juned Siddique, Leland R. Bardsley, and Angela Fidler Pfammatter. Jurnal of Clinical and Translational Science DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/cts.2019.383 Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 July 2019

This paper is open access.