This is a request to provide funding for a bioinformatics faculty member with a specialty in epigenetics. This request is put forward by the University of Louisville Alcohol Research Center (ULARCNIAAA- funded P01AA017103-01-Craig McClain, PI) and the new faculty line will be in the Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute's Biomedical and Health Informatics Core and the School of Medicine. Collaborating Centers/Institutes are the University of Louisville Center for Environmental Genetics and Integrative Biology (CEGIB- NIEHS P30 ES014443, Ken Ramos, PI);the University of Louisville Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute (CTSI, Craig McClain, Director);the Center of Excellence in Diabetes and Obesity Research (P20RR024489-01A1, Aruni Bhatnagar, PI);and Cardiovascular Toxicity of Environmental Aldehydes (P01ES011860-05, Aruni Bhatnagar, PI). UofL's Bioinformatics Task Force defined UofL bioinformatics capacity and needs for the next ten years. They recommended ten faculty lines. This faculty hire will fill one of the three bioinformatics faculty lines provided to the CTSI in 2007 and previously advertised. Two years of salary support has been provided after the completion of the grant. The primary objectives of this faculty position are to capture the environmental (examples;alcohol, and nutrition), medical and behavioral aspects of participants;incorporate them into a usable database;integrate that information with the research information available from the investigator's epigenetic data;collaborate with the other investigators and centers;and integrate data from national registries and databases. The bioinformatics position will physically be located with the University of Louisville Alcohol Research Center and the Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute in the Clinical and Translational Sciences Building. All support services, computer systems, databases, etc. are either available or can be accessed from this location. Tenure, promotion and career development occur in the School of Medicine. Dr. McClain the PI on this grant has an exemplary tract record for mentoring new faculty with over 20 career development awards, i.e. K awards. The school has a well established mentoring and new faculty assistance program with additional assistance from the Health Sciences Center Research Office. Evaluation will include the core and the faculty member. The CTSI will evaluate the Core while Dr. McClain and the department chair using the work assignment contract will evaluate the faculty member.
Filling this bioinformatics faculty line is essential for UL developing an epigenetics focus and the continued success of all centers included in this submission.
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