TPP 2018 Winter Update

Greetings TPP members and associates,

Hope everyone had a tremendous break and that your semester is off to a great start.  It’s hard for us (Anthony and Scott) to believe that we took on the TPP leadership a year ago, the year has just flown by.  The year was busy with many TPP sponsored activities and the CMI retreat late in the fall.  We want to express our deepest thanks to everyone who has participated and hope you feel your efforts have been worthwhile.  We’ve learned a lot about what works (and what doesn’t) and received some wonderful feedback.  Here’s an outline of TPP activities for the coming year.

January – Selection of Summer Interdisciplinary Research Initiative (SIRI) summer students has begun. Associate members will be putting forth ideas and proposals as projects for summer undergraduate students.  TPP members and associates are encouraged to participate.  Look for emails from CMI.

February – Inaugural meeting of the TPP steering committee.  Active TPP members fall into six areas of interest (see below).  Representatives from these areas will be asked to meet and provide additional feedback and guidance (volunteers will not be discouraged).   Please note that because both TPP and EID have members with an interest in Drug Discovery, this area will be emerging as a separate initiative for the CMI.

TPP areas of interest

Host Defense and Cancer

Gut

Pain, Itch, and Allergy

Pharmacokinetics

Nutrition and Obesity

Drug Discovery

March – A celebration of TPP research.  Posters, food and drinks, and seed grant winners from previous cycles will be presenting results from their studies.

May – Seed grant competition for grants to be distributed soon after July 1. Grant format to be determined with feedback from the steering committee.

July – Distribution of seed grant funds.

August – Selection of Business and Medicine (BaM) program participants.   In case you haven’t heard, in BaM, Master of Microbial Biotechnology students, with their scientific and business training, act as consultants for CMI researchers.  Last year’s BaM program received rave reviews.  What ideas do you have for translating your ideas and technology to the marketplace?  The BaM program will run for five weeks during the fall semester.  Check out the link below.

https://research.ncsu.edu/cmi/2017/11/cmi-tpp-kicks-off-innovative-research-with-a-bam/

November – TPP networking event.  Now taking suggestions for your favorite local hang outs.

Scott and Anthony