New Mexico Center for Spatiotemporal Modeling
The University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, and Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico, United States
The New Mexico Spatiotemporal Modeling Center (STMC; http://stmc.health.unm.edu/), one of the 10 NIH-funded National Centers for System Biology, was established to understand normal and abnormal cell behavior through the integration of spatial, temporal and biochemical measurements and models of signaling pathways important in immune diseases and cancer. The STMC benefits from close interactions between interdisciplinary research teams at UNM (in the Health Sciences Center, Cancer Center, School of Engineering and College of Arts and Sciences) and at New Mexico’s Sandia and Los Alamos National Laboratories. The principal STMC scientific teams focus on measuring and modeling signaling though key tyrosine kinase-coupled receptors (the multi-chain immunoreceptors, especially FcεRI, and the growth factor receptors, especially ErbB family members) and their modulation by crosstalk with phosphatase-coupled and G protein-coupled receptors. Developing teams consider tumor growth and development as well as the bone marrow microenvironment. The scientific projects gain strong support from next-generation technology cores, currently focused on nanotechnology, microfluidics, super resolution imaging and the production of novel affinity reagents for imaging and biochemistry.
Research Topics Currently Explored at the STMC
- Bayesian statistical methods
- Signal transduction and crosstalk between signaling pathways
- Tumor growth, angiogenesis and metastasis
- Deterministic, rules-based and stochastic modeling
- Super-resolution and hyperspectral fluorescence imaging
- Quantum dots and other novel imaging probes
- Single molecule dynamics
- Quantitative electron microscopy and image analysis
- Nanoscience and microsystems
Contact person for international outreach:
Elaine S. Bearer, MD/PhD, Professor of Pathology, UNM (ebearer@salud.unm.edu)
Stanly L Steinberg, PhD, Professor of Mathematics and Statistics (stanly@math.unm.edu)
William Hlavacek, PhD, Technical Staff Member , LANL (bhlavacek@tgen.org)
Ryan Tanner, STMC Program Manager (rtanner@salud.unm.edu)
Current examples of international collaborations:
The STMC has funding from its NIH-NIGMS P50 National Centers for Systems Biology award to host short term visits from visiting scientists whose research aligns well with the STMC goals. Additional funding for visitors is available through the Center for Non-Linear Studies at LANL and through the New Mexico Consortium/Institute for Advanced Study. Recent short-term visitors have included:
Canada/Latin America
Dr Nicolas Robidoux, Laurentian University, Ontario, Canada
Dr. Cecile Fraden, Department of Physics & Astronomy, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario
Dr. Enrique Ortega, National Autonomous University of Mexico, Mexico City
Asia/Pacific
Dr. Graham McKay, University of Melbourne, Australia
Dr. Jin Yang, the CAS-Max Planck Institute for Computational Biology, University of Shanghai, China
Europe/Middle EastDr. Tomasz Lipniacki, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland
Dr. Berndt Rieger, University of Delft, Holland
Dr. Lama Youssef, University of Damascus, Syria
Dr. Jasmin Fisher, Microsoft Research, Cambridge, England
Dr. Andre Leier, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich, Switzerland
Dr. Tatiana Marquez, ETH, Zurich, Switzerland
Dr. Alessandra Cambi, Nijmegen Centre for Molecular Life Sciences, The Netherlands
Dr. Thomas Jovin, Max Plank Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, Goettingen, Germany
Dr. Donna Arndt-Jovin, Max Plank Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, Goettingen, Germany
Dr. Maria Garcia-Parajo, Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia, Barcelona, Spain
Relevant quantitative or systems biology graduate programs:
UNM offers graduate training in quantitative and systems biology as an interdisciplinary track within multiple graduate programs including the Biomedical Sciences Graduate Program in the Health Sciences Center, the graduate programs in Mathematics and Statistics, Physics and Biology in the College of Arts and Sciences and the graduate programs in Computer Science, Electrical and Chemical Engineering, Chemical and Nuclear Engineering and Nanoscience and Microsystems within the School of Engineering (see http://www.unm.edu/grad/). Fellowship support for interdisciplinary training is from multiple sources including the STMC, the national labs and from a Cancer Nanotechnology Training Center grant awarded in September, 2010 (http://www.nano.cancer.gov/announcement-09-24-2010.asp). Fellowships may support non-US citizens.
STMC and LANL scientists offer an international summer school in systems biology, the q-bio summer school (http://cnls.lanl.gov/q-bio/summer_school.html). Students attending the summer school also attend the annual international q-bio conference, a major systems biology conference co-sponsored by STMC, NIH and LANL in Santa Fe (http://cnls.lanl.gov/q-bio/). The 2010 q-bio summer school class is shown above.