On July 1, the CGRB will become the Center for Quantitative Life Sciences

Dear colleagues,

I am pleased announce an exciting new advance in the ongoing re-invention of our Center. Informed by more than two years of engagement with our community of stakeholders, including a five year review in 2019 and the development of a new Strategic Plan during 2019-21, on July 1 the CGRB will become the Center for Quantitative Life Sciences.

The mission of the Center for Quantitative Life Sciences will be to inclusively partner with the OSU community and stakeholders to catalyze innovations and excellence in the generation and applications of big data in all areas of life sciences research.

The purpose of the transformation is as follows:

1. Support and strengthen existing data generation and analysis capabilities that are highly valued by the Center’s research community, including research training.

2. Expand capabilities in new and emerging areas of data generation and analysis needed by OSU life scientists, including research training.

3. Catalyze innovative interdisciplinary life sciences research enabled by Center capabilities.

4. Through inclusive governance, strategically focus Center investments in order to achieve impact.

5. In all that we do, continuously strive to advance inclusive excellence and social justice.

Big data and data science pervade every area of the life, agricultural, ecological, environmental and health sciences today and are destined to grow increasingly more important. To remain globally competitive, and to strengthen their impact across OSU’s three signature areas of research, OSU researchers and their trainees need access to infrastructure, training and collaborative expertise in all aspects of the data sciences. They need access to rapidly advancing data generation technologies, including genomics technologies, that will continue to transform the broader life sciences, including agricultural, ecological, marine, biomedical and health sciences. They will need the capabilities to acquire, manage, integrate, analyze, secure, and share massive, diverse sets of genomics, health, biomedical, phenotypic, chemical, image, environmental, geographic, and demographic data. Access to these capabilities must be fully inclusive, equitably available to researchers and trainees from all backgrounds, especially those historically under-represented in STEM. The transformation of the Center for Genome Research and Biocomputing into the Center for Quantitative Life Sciences is intended to meet these needs.

Please join me on April 28 at 3pm to hear more about this exciting development.

I am deeply grateful to the many individuals and the wider Center community, including university and College leadership, for their engagement, contributions and support as we re-imagined the future of the Center. I would particularly like to thank the Center’s five year review committee, the Center’s Strategic Planning Committee, the Center’s Transition Committee, the Center’s staff, the leadership of the Office of Research, and our consultant Stephen Shields for their hard work and imagination in helping us along our journey, much of it during the time of COVID.

Thank you,
Director