The Global Food Systems Initiative has released a new podcast episode featuring Phillip Lancaster, clinical assistant professor in the College of Veterinary Medicine, discussing his research on the sustainable production of beef cattle.

Listen here.

The National Science Foundation, or NSF, unexpectedly released a new RFA this year for its EPSCoR RII Track-4: EPSCoR Research Fellows program. Previously, this program was limited to untenured faculty. The new RFA has expanded this eligibility to include tenured assistant and associate professors.  

The EPSCoR Track 4 program provides awards to help transform the career trajectories of eligible investigators and further develop their individual research potential through extended collaborative visits (often 3 summer months in two successive years) to the nation’s premier private, governmental, or academic research centers. Through these visits, fellowship awardees will be able to learn new techniques, develop new collaborations or advance existing partnerships, benefit from access to unique equipment and facilities, and/or shift their research toward potentially transformative new directions. Up to six total months of salary support and travel expenses may also be requested for one additional trainee such as an undergraduate or graduate student, a postdoctoral or a technical staff member of the PI's Institution, to work with the PI and complete the planned activities.

This is still a limited submission program, but other changes include an expansion from three submissions to four per institution. If you are interested in submitting to this program you must notify the Office of Research Development, or ORD, by 5 p.m. January 17, 2023 via ordlimitedsubs@k-state.edu. Your notification should include a two- to three-sentence description of your project plus the names of your anticipated host and host institution. If ORD receives more than four notifications, an internal competition will be needed with preproposals due by 5 p.m. on February 7, 2023. While specific instructions will be given to the notifiers for the preproposal, they will closely follow the instructions from last year.

The CNAP COBRE center at Kansas State University is soliciting applications for pilot grants that will begin on June 1, 2023. The grants are open to all faculty with appointments at higher education institutions within the state of Kansas, although early and mid-career faculty will be prioritized for funding.

Proposed pilot grants should seek to enhance neuroscience research in the state of Kansas and/or fit within CNAP’s theme of cognitive and neural plasticity. The center funds basic, translational and clinical research in humans and animals from a wide range of disciplines (e.g., animal behavior, biology, pharmacology, veterinary medicine, cognitive science, human factors, kinesiology, human nutrition, computer science and engineering).

Applicants are encouraged to submit a letter of intent by 5 p.m. CST on Wednesday, Feb.1, 2023. This is highly recommended to ensure that your grant can be reviewed in a timely manner. Applications should be submitted by the applicant’s research office and are due by 5 p.m. CST on Wednesday, March 1, 2023.

Join this question-and-answer session to learn more about America’s Seed Fund powered by the National Science Foundation. A Small Business Innovation Research/Small Business Technology Transfer, or SBIR/STTR, program director will answer questions about how to get started, the basics of eligibility and what they look for when they review project pitches.

Register for the Intro to America's Seed Fund webinar on Zoom.

9:30-11 a.m.

January 12 and January 26

Please join the Human Networks and Data Science Program to discuss questions about the program with the program director. 

To join, use the Human Networks and Data Science office hour Zoom link.

• All meetings during office hours are 1-on-1. Guests are seen in the order they join. You may have to wait if others join before you.
• If you need captions or other accommodations, please contact Trisha Van Zandt in advance. 

For more information about the program, visit the Human Networks and Data Science Program page.

Jan. 18, 25 and Feb. 1

Please join the Human-Environment and Geographical Sciences Program to discuss questions about the program with the program directors. 

Office hours will take place over Zoom, generally on Wednesdays from 3 to 4 p.m. 

Learn more and register to attend.

Noon-1 p.m.

Thursday, Jan. 19

During this office hour, NSF administrative professionals, who often interact with the research community, will give an overview of their roles in the merit review and grants management process and answer audience questions. The IIS Office Hours are for researchers interested in learning about programs and policies in the Division of Information and Intelligent Systems in the Computer and Information Science and Engineering Directorate at NSF. Office Hours are designed to give current and potential investigators a window into IIS. Attendance at office hours is voluntary and designed to help investigators gain information that can help them strengthen their proposals. Short summaries will be posted after each session. Sessions will be closed-captioned.

Register in advance for this webinar.

Noon-1 p.m.

Thursday, Jan. 19

The Mathematical Biology program in the Division of Mathematical Sciences is hosting a webinar to share information about the new funding opportunity on Emerging Mathematics in Biology, or eMB. Program Officers will answer questions from the participants.

Register in advance for this webinar.

Office hour: Noon, Jan. 19

EDGE proposal deadline: February 16

The Directorate for Biological Sciences at the National Science Foundation and the National Human Genome Research Institute at the National Institutes of Health will host a virtual office hour about the EDGE program and the current solicitation. Together with program directors from NHGRI, program directors from BIO’s Divisions of Integrative Organismal Systems, Biological Infrastructure, Environmental Biology, and Molecular and Cellular Biosciences will provide a brief presentation and answer questions from participants. 

Through the EDGE program, the NSF and the NIH support research to deepen understanding of comparative and functional genomics. The program supports development of innovative tools, technologies, resources, and infrastructure that advance research on mechanisms connecting genes and phenotypes. EDGE also supports functional genomic research on the mechanistic basis of complex traits in diverse organisms within the context (environmental, developmental, social, and/or genomic) in which they function.

Register to attend the webinar.

This summer, NIIMBL and BioKansas are partnering to provide a unique opportunity for up to 15 STEM students nationwide. This is an in-person, weeklong eXperience for Black, Latinx, and Indigenous undergraduate students. Each day will focus on new lessons - from developing your brand, communications, hands-on training, and resume workshops. Our last day will conclude with the Innovation Festival, an event where music and tech collide in the heart of Kansas City, where there will be a plethora of conference topics and workshops to choose from.

All expenses are paid for each selected student including transportation, lodging, and meals. We’ll also provide each student with an additional $500 stipend for participating. 

Apply by January 20, 2023

Learn more.

Noon

Friday, Jan. 20

Join this informational webinar to learn more about the Geosciences Open Science Ecosystem, or GEO OSE, program. This webinar will review the new GEO OSE solicitation and provide time for Q&A. The GEO OSE program seeks to support sustainable and networked open science activities to foster an ecosystem of inclusive access to data, physical collections, software, advanced computing, and other resources toward advancing research and education in the geosciences. The purpose of this support is to broadly enable geoscientists to leverage expanding information resources and computing capabilities to address interdisciplinary grand challenge research questions at the forefront of the geosciences.

Register in advance for this webinar.

Noon-1 p.m.

Wednesday, Jan. 25

The National Science Foundation CISE Directorate has issued a new program on Design for Environmental Sustainability in Computing, or DESC. The purpose of DESC is to encourage the submission of novel and high impact proposals that advance sustainability in all aspects of computing broadly. DESC seeks proposals that look well beyond power/energy efficiency of computing. Design for sustainable computing approaches with carbon and other sustainability metrics as first order optimization criteria are a particular goal of this program. For example, DESC encourages a full lifecycle analysis approach that considers computing across its lifecycle including embodied impacts from manufacturing, impacts from supply chains, reuse, recycling, and disposal, all of which go beyond the supply chain. DESC is open to diverse notions of environmental sustainability, presuming they can be quantified and will provide impact. Sustainability solely for economic and/or societal impacts are out of scope for DESC.  Moreover, DESC is not soliciting proposals that solely seek to advance energy efficiency, performance, or other traditional computing metrics or develop computing to support sustainability in other domains. It is specifically focused on design for environmentally sustainable computing. 

This 60-minute information webinar will provide an overview of the DESC program including context for the topic, the topic areas of interest and those excluded, and a question and answer session with NSF Program Directors responsible for this solicitation.

Register in advance for this webinar.

3-5 p.m.

Thursday, Jan. 26

Children's Mercy Research Institute, 2401 Gillham Rd, Kansas City, MO

Presentations: 3:30-4:30 p.m.

• Welcome, Series Overview and Deliverables
• Dennis Ridenour, CEO, BioNexus KC and Sara Hart Weir, Rare KC
• Speakers
• Pediatric: Tom Curran, PhD, Executive Director and CSO, Children’s Mercy Research Institute
• Adult: Steven Stites, MD, Vice Chancellor Clinical Affairs, University of Kansas Medical Center
• Payor: Jay Bryant-Wimp, RPh, Clinical Advisor, Optum Frontier Therapies
• Patient: Kevin Wake, Patient Advocate, Uriel E. Owens Sickle Cell Disease Association of the Midwest
• Panel discussion | Moderator: Kelly Ranallo, Founder, RareKC

Join us for networking and refreshments before and after the presentations. 

11-Noon

Feb. 2, March 2

Please join this I-Corps Teams webinar to ask an I-Corps program director questions and hear updates about the I-Corps program, curriculum, and important dates.

Register for the I-Corps Teams webinar on Zoom.

There are more nearby volcanoes than just the ones in Yellowstone National Park Daily Montanan

‘This is do or die’: Western Kansas farmers push to save the Ogallala aquifer before it’s too late KCUR

Kansas soybean growers felt pain of production challenges High Plains Journal

From Canada Comes Moose Knuckles With A New Idea In Luxury Outerwear: Fun, Fit And Function Forbes

K-State UAS: High value in airport crash simulation through FAA funded research Salina Post

A biotech firm says the U.S. has approved its vaccine for honeybees

The federal government has granted a conditional license for a honeybee vaccine, the developer of the drug announced Wednesday.

The vaccine will be used to help fight American Foulbrood disease in the insects and was approved by the Department of Agriculture, Dalan Animal Health, the biotech company behind the vaccine, said. NPR

New approach successfully traces genomic variants back to genetic disorders

National Institutes of Health researchers have published an assessment of 13 studies that took a genotype-first approach to patient care. This approach contrasts with the typical phenotype-first approach to clinical research, which starts with clinical findings. A genotype-first approach to patient care involves selecting patients with specific genomic variants and then studying their traits and symptoms; this finding uncovered new relationships between genes and clinical conditions, broadened the traits and symptoms associated with known disorders, and offered insights into newly described disorders. NIH

Keeping indoor humidity levels at a "sweet spot" may reduce spread of COVID-19

Proper indoor ventilation is key to reducing the spread of COVID-19. Now, a study by MIT researchers finds that indoor relative humidity may also influence transmission of the virus. NSF

New study details impacts on food security caused by flooding

A new study by researchers at New York University and other institutions details ways that flooding can affect food security. The study tracked the effects of flooding on 5.6 million people in several African nations. NSF

Wastewater surveillance for public health

Dating back to the origins of modern epidemiology, wastewater surveillance has predominantly been used to track pathogens spread by fecal-oral transmission such as those that cause cholera and polio. However, more than just these “enteric” pathogens are shed via the gut, as highlighted by the success of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) wastewater surveillance (1, 2), recent work on tracking influenza virus (3) and monkeypox virus (4), and observations of extensive pathogen diversity in stool (5, 6). Wastewater is now a core component of infectious disease monitoring, providing a variant-specific, community-representative picture of public health trends that captures previously undetected spread and pathogen transmission links. Science

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