Four interdisciplinary team projects have been selected to receive support through the second round of Ohio State’s Growing Research Opportunities (GRO) Ideation Workshops. These workshops are designed to help teams hone their research ideas and develop strategies and action steps to pursue external funding within 12 to 24 months. As part of a larger set of GRO initiatives, the goal is to foster intellectually diverse, collaborative research across academic domains, catalyze new scholarly pursuits for our faculty, and help generate compelling, external funding proposals.
Interdisciplinary teams and topics selected during this round of competition include:
How do we better study underserved populations to improve health outcomes? A case study using sickle cell disease.
This team will investigate strategies and future funding to study the baseline characteristics of the microbiome in children with sickle cell disease (SCD) and how antibiotics and other external factors modify microbial communities in patients experiencing SCD complications from acute chest syndrome or vaso-occulsive pain crisis
Lead PI: Benjamin Kopp, College of Medicine and Division of Pulmonary Medicine and Center for Microbial Pathogenesis, Nationwide Children’s Hospital
Co-Investigators:
- Susan Creary, College of Medicine and Center for Health Equity and Outcomes Research and Division of Hematology/Oncology/ Blood and Marrow Transplant, Nationwide Children’s Hospital
- Mike Bailey, College of Medicine and Center for Microbial Pathogenesis, Nationwide Children’s Hospital
- Asuncion Mejias, College of Medicine and Division of Infectious Diseases, Center for Vaccines and Immunity, Nationwide Children’s Hospital, Division of Infectious Diseases
- Octavio Ramilo, College of Medicine and Division of Infectious Diseases, Center for Vaccines and Immunity, Nationwide Children’s Hospital
- Matthew Sullivan, Department of Microbiology, College of Arts and Sciences
How might pathogen infection facilitate tick range expansion?
This team will investigate strategies and future funding to study how changes in tick biology interact with the environment to facilitate the spread of tick-borne diseases to enhance our ability to predict and prevent the spread of these diseases.
Lead PI: Risa Pesapane, Department of Veterinary Preventive Medicine, College of Veterinary Medicine and School of Environment and Natural Resources, College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences
Co-Investigators:
- Sara Short, Department of Entomology, College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences
- Megan Meuti, Department of Entomology, College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences
The microbiome and metabolism: How do the diet and microbiome interact to affect health?
This team will investigate strategies and future funding to study the interplay between the diet, microbiome and their collective influence on health.
Lead PI: Devin Peterson, Department of Food Science and Technology, College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences
Co-Investigators:
- Matthew Sullivan, Department of Microbiology, College of Arts and Sciences
- Steven Clinton, Department of Medical Oncology, College of Medicine
- Vicki Wysocki, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, College of Arts and Sciences
- Martha Belury, Department of Human Sciences, College of Education and Human Ecology
How can we leverage and strengthen diverse skill sets to advance creative approaches to developing materials that capture human imagination and delight the senses?
This team will investigate strategies to study how to reuse developing materials that capture human imagination and delight the senses.
Lead PI: Steve Thurston, Department of Art, College of Arts and Sciences
Co-Investigators:
- Carmel Buckley, Department of Art, College of Arts and Sciences
- Todd Slaughter, Department of Art, College of Arts and Sciences
- Eric Schindelholz, Department of Material Science and Engineering, College of Engineering
- Blaine Lilly, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, College of Engineering
- Rebecca Harvey, Department of Art, College of Arts and Sciences