The University of Oregon has received a five-year, $10.3 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to launch a systems biology research and education center.

The UO’s Microbial Ecology and Theory of Animals Center for Systems Biology (META CSB) will be devoted to understanding how animal-associated microbial communities assemble, interact, evolve and influence human health and diseases.  Funded by the NIH’s National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), the center will include 12 UO researchers from four institutes and four departments, said biology professor Karen Guillemin, who will head the facility.

Leaders of the center with Guillemin will be: Brendan Bohannan, biology and the Institute of Ecology and Evolution (IEE); John Conery, computer and information Science, IEE; William Cresko, biology, IEE; Judith Eisen, biology and the Institute of Neuroscience (ION); Jessica Green, biology, IEE; Eric Johnson, biology, IMB; David Levin, mathematics; Peter O’Day, neuroscience, ION; Raghuveer Parthasarathy, physics, Material Sciences Institute and IMB; Patrick Phillips, biology, IEE; and John Postlethwait, biology, ION.

Funding for the new UO center comes from the NIH as grant number P50 GM098911.

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