About
The Center for Microbiome Engineering and Data Analysis brings together the expertise of analytical, computational and mathematical investigators and biological, biomedical and wet lab scientists to close the gap when interpreting massive data sets generated by contemporary multi-omic technologies.
Our goal is to establish a university-wide highly interdisciplinary and collaborative effort to study the human and environmental microbiomes while developing novel computational and analytical tools to interpret, present and visualize multi-omic microbiome data. We are also focused on early stage investigators and individuals from underrepresented groups.
Accomplishing these goals will raise the national and international visibility of the VCU research mission and promote VCU’s strategic initiatives to expand our research enterprise.
Our vision
To make VCU a recognized international leader in microbiome analysis and engineering.
Our mission
To apply cutting-edge multi-omic technologies and sophisticated computational tools in collaborative interdisciplinary research programs that will define and dissect the role of the human microbiome in human health and disease.
Microbiome research has flourished in recent years, thanks to next-generation sequencing that allows identification and analysis of microbial populations, independent of the requirement to culture them. This watershed development allowed researchers to investigate microbial taxa in the human body and the environment that had never been studied—or even cultured.
Recognizing the importance of the microbiome on human health and the environment, government agencies such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Department of Energy (DOE) invested millions of dollars in new, targeted microbiome science. The NIH alone invested $1 billion in microbiome research, including $215 million through the Human Microbiome Project (HMP).
VCU was fortunate to receive almost 10% of the HMP funding, totaling more than $20 million, as well as additional funding from the National Human Genome Research Institute, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, Office of Research on Women's Health, NICAMS and other NIH institutes. This funding continues and was recently enhanced with a donation of $104 million to Arun Sanyal, M.D., chair of the Department of Internal Medicine and one of VCU’s key investigators studying the role of the gut microbiome in liver disease.
At the same time, the College of Engineering and other academic units at VCU have recruited faculty who are focused on microbiome engineering and analysis of high dimensional multi omic microbiome data. The latter area—which includes data analysis and visualization—is one in which microbiome science is currently lagging and presents a real opportunity for new innovative solutions.
Building on this burgeoning interest, the cMEDA launched in 2020 following a visit from Curtis Huttenhower, Ph.D., professor of computational biology and bioinformatics in Harvard University's school of public health and one of the true leaders in microbiome analytics. The cMEDA also received initially funding of $50,000, split between VCU's College of Engineering and School of Medicine.
The cMEDA began with an initial roster of 90 members, including faculty, post-docs and graduate and medical students and has since grown to more than 125 researchers. This depth and breadth of expertise places VCU in an optimal position to become an international leader in microbiome science and engineering.
- To maintain and expand collaborative microbiome-oriented multi omic research at VCU.
- To develop new computational and quantitative strategies to analyze and visualize microbiome data.
- To mentor and support early stage investigators to establish microbiome-oriented research projects.
- To mentor and support transitional investigators to transition to microbiome-oriented research.
- To mentor early stage and transitional investigators to successful initial grant applications.
- To publish high quality manuscripts on VCU-based microbiome research.
- To establish an undergraduate/graduate internship program to bring students to microbiome research.
- To establish a pilot grant program to support pilot microbiome studies leading to extramural funding.
- To continue successful competition for collaborative R-level grants funding VCU microbiome research.
- To enhance the Microbiome Forum as a monthly activity with four to six external speakers each year.
- To win collaborative, multiple PI, P- or U-level grants funding VCU-based microbiome research.
- To establish national and international collaborations that raise visibility of VCU microbiome research.
It is important to note that the activities of cMEDA investigators are not limited to VCU. The following is a partial list of national and international sites with which cMEDA investigators have collaborative grants and research projects:
- Albert Einstein Yeshiva University
- University of Capetown
- Universita Degli Studi di Pavia
- George Washington University
- Burnet Institute
- University of São Paulo
- University of North Carolina
- Baylor College of Medicine
- Columbia University
- University of South Carolina
- George Mason University
- Purdue University
- University of Pennsylvania
- FHI 360 Durham NC
- University of South Florida
- Rockefeller University
- University of Virginia