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New Collaborative Evolution Center Will Foster Understanding of Vast Diversity of Life

The new National Evolutionary Synthesis Center will create links among vast data banks of biological knowledge, as well as the scientists who created them

The Erwin Square Mill building in Durham will soon host a menagerie of millions of algae, bacteria, insects, sea slugs, worms, birds, mice, plants, people and a host of other creatures.

However, neighbors won't have to put up with a cacophony of buzzes and screeches; all the creatures will exist inside computers -- in the form of masses of data on their genetics, behavior and structure.

The building will house the new National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent), established with a $15 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF).

The evolution center is a result of collaborations among Duke University, North Carolina State University (NC State) and the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill.

"This new center will transform evolutionary biology by tackling long-standing questions in a new way through science that is collaborative, and that synthesizes results," said Sam Scheiner, program director in NSF's emerging frontiers division, which funded the center.

The study of evolution encompasses a range of sciences -- from the molecular details of how a species' genes have mutated over time to the sprawling family trees of plants and animals. Scientists who study evolution include biologists, physicians, paleontologists, crop scientists and computer scientists.

"Information about biological evolution has exploded in the past several decades, fueled by advances in biodiversity, computation, genomics and many other fields," said Joel Kingsolver, a biologist at UNC and the center's associate director for science and synthesis.  "Now is the time for synthesizing this information to gain a new level of scientific understanding about evolution, and to apply this understanding to important societal issues."

Until now, said the center's director, Clifford Cunningham an associate professor in the Department of Biology, different scientific disciplines have too often concentrated only on their own pieces of the puzzle. The center's aim, he said, will be to help scientists assemble those pieces to see the broad picture of evolution. In a sense, according to Cunningham, each kind of researcher speaks a different scientific language, and the challenge will be to get them to learn each other's languages so they can collaborate to make advances in evolution.

The center will develop a common "language" to enable communication among disparate scientific information databases on the large number of organisms important in the study of evolution. "The scientific challenges of the 21st century involve coordination and management of data," said Dan Reed, leader of the center's computing strategy and director of the interdisciplinary Renaissance Computing Institute, a UNC, Duke and NC State collaborative venture.

"The explosive growth of scientific data, captured by research collaborators around the world, necessitates new approaches to data storage, mining and presentation.  By coordinating data, researchers will be better able to answer long-standing questions," said Reed, who is Chancellor's Eminent Professor at UNC.

"Studies at the center will have applications that impact individuals in many ways, including forensics and agriculture," said the center's associate director for education and outreach, Greg Gibson, geneticist at NC State and assistant director for life sciences for the North Carolina Agricultural Research Service.  "Designing strategies for prevention of insecticide resistance, finding new approaches to environmental protection and developing a better understanding of humans' shared genetic heritage are objectives that require a new understanding of evolutionary processes," he said.

The center will emphasize educational programs in which scientists will communicate their results to policymakers. The educational programs will also help teachers develop lesson plans on evolution and interest students at historically minority colleges and universities in studying evolution. A network of educators and extension agents throughout the state will work to keep the public informed about the outcome of center activities.

According to Cunningham, although NESCent is a collaborative effort, Duke University is the lead institution. He credited senior Duke administrators as playing crucial roles in providing major financial commitments to the enterprise that helped bring the center to the Triangle. 

"Negotiating these commitments was one of the last contributions by Duke's first Dean of the Natural Sciences, Berndt Mueller, who had long dreamed of helping to build a national evolutionary center," said Cunningham. "And bringing these commitments into reality has been among the first accomplishments of George McLendon and Stephen Nowicki, respectively the incoming Dean's of Arts and Sciences and Natural Sciences.

"Several members of the site-visit team from NSF remarked not only that Provost Peter Lange was very familiar with plans for the center, but that he was able to name so many members of the biology department off the top of his head!" Cunningham said that support from the Provost's office includes not only substantial funds for the new space, but providing funds for professional architect's drawings to help convince the site-visit team of the sincerity of its commitment.

Finally, said Cunningham, Huntington Willard, director of the Institute for Genome Sciences and Policy, provided key support for the center by funding the world's only "phylogenetic consultant," who will be housed at NESCent and will help bring the latest evolutionary methods to biomedical researchers throughout the Triangle.

For more information contact: NSF: Cheryl Dybas | cdybas@nsf.gov | (703) 292-7734 Duke: Dennis Meredith | dennis.meredith@duke.edu | (919) 681-8054 NCSU: Dee Shore | dee_shore@ncsu.edu | (919) 513-3108 UNC: Lisa Katz | lisa_katz@unc.edu | (919) 962-2093