Year: 2018

The Clemson University Research Foundation welcomes Dr. Alan Alfano and Clarissa Williams to its team.

Alan will be working as a technology commercialization officer (TCO) with Clemson inventors on biomedical, bioengineering, and life sciences technologies, among others. Clarissa will serve as CURF marketing manager, working to help CURF launch new marketing initiatives.

Alan completed a dual BS degree from Towson University (molecular biology/chemistry) in 2009, and subsequently earned his Ph.D. from the University of Maryland, School of Medicine (molecular medicine) in 2015. His thesis work focused on drug resistance and metastatic spread of aggressive prostate cancer. During his time as a Ph.D. student at UMSOM, Alan also completed a technology development internship with UMVentures (UMB Technology Transfer Office), where he assisted senior staff in conducting commercial analysis and targeted marketing of selected technologies.

Following completion of his Ph.D. work at UMSOM, Alan completed a post-doctoral Cancer Research Training Award (CRTA) Fellowship at the National Cancer Institute Technology Transfer Center (NCI-TTC). As a fellow at NCI TTC, Alan worked to perform a variety of invention development activities for clinicians and researchers at the NIH/NCI Center for Cancer Research. His primary subject areas of invention management/expertise include: oncology (general), experimental transplants, immunology and immunotherapeutics (e.g. novel antibodies, CARs, ADCs, RITs, etc.), vaccine development, radiation oncology, molecular diagnostics, genetics, and software/digital solutions.

Through his work in disease research, and his biotech business experience at UMB and NCI, Alan has developed skills that will enable him to learn and adapt quickly in his new role as a TCO with CURF. Please welcome him; he is looking forward to working with you!

Clarissa comes to CURF with a wealth of knowledge in branding, social media management, website development, and graphic design. Before accepting the marketing manager position with CURF, Clarissa was the training and communications coordinator at Clemson University in the Office of Sponsored Programs. While there, she redeveloped the office website, managed social media platforms, and coordinated a number of campus-wide events.

Clarissa completed a BA degree in English from Clemson University in 2013 and later received her MS in Marketing, also from Clemson University, in 2017. Through her education and years working in the marketing industry, Clarissa has developed skills that will allow her to successfully adapt to her new role as marketing manager at CURF so that she is able to build the CURF brand by increasing engagement and awareness on and offline.

Beginning mid-August 2018, principal investigators (PI’s) and faculty of sponsored projects awarded to Clemson University will see an improved method of verifying pay charged toward sponsored project and federal land grant activities. The new system, Sponsored Compensation Verification System, incorporates the exceptional feedback received by our project team from faculty, staff, and current certifiers of the Clemson Link to Employee Activity Reports (CLEAR) system. The CLEAR system is expected to be retired during late summer.

A few of the major and widely anticipated changes of the new system include:

• Reports will be produced bi-annually for approval rather than three times per year.
• The new report will represent real dollars rather than percentages.
• PI’s will approve personnel paid on a project-by-project basis rather than individually by person.
• Graduate students will no longer be responsible for approving their own reports.
• PIs will approve reports for all employees on each sponsored project for which they are responsible (inclusive of related cost-share funds 10, and 15).

Additional communications, including reference to quick guides and frequently asked question documents, will be provided to assist in the transition to the new system in advance of the systems’ launch in mid-August.  Meanwhile if you have any questions or comments, please email Tracy Walters or Karen Lantgios for additional information.

A Rare Opportunity

There are fewer than 300 living Nobel laureates in the world, so the chance of meeting one is very rare. But a Nobel laureate was on campus last month, meeting with faculty and students, answering their questions and sharing knowledge. These are the types of activities and opportunities available at universities that display the highest levels of research activity, at Carnegie R1 universities.

After spending the morning meeting privately with faculty and graduate students, Nobel laureate Robert Grubbs spoke to a packed crowd at the Watt Family Innovation Center auditorium, providing an overview of the metathesis method in organic synthesis. Grubbs was co-recipient of the Nobel prize for chemistry in 2005 for his discovery of this metathesis method. Metathesis is an organic reaction that allows chemists to replace certain atoms in a compound with atoms from another compound to create customized molecules with specialized properties. Metathesis has paved the way for the development of new polymers, pharmaceuticals, plastics and other materials.

https://youtu.be/oK20OxTBbfo

In addition to detailing the science, Dr. Grubbs walked the audience through some of the surprise findings made along the way and the many collaborations that led to his discovery. Read more about his visit here and watch the video to hear Dr. Grubbs speak about failures, successes, surprises, career choices and more.

I encourage you to pursue collaborations as Dr. Grubbs has. Wednesday’s Research Symposium at the Watt Family Innovation Center offers a great opportunity for you to find collaborators with similar interests. There will be numerous panel discussions on research. Visit the Symposium website to view a schedule of events and read the abstracts for the presentations. The Symposium serves as the conclusion of Research Innovation Month, in which we celebrate our research accomplishments and the impact scientific discovery has on the human condition.

In that spirit, President Clements and I will present our most accomplished faculty with University Research, Scholarship and Artistic Achievement Awards (URSAAA) during the Symposium. This newly created awards program recognizes faculty who have achieved the highest levels of national and international recognition. As an institution, we should do more to recognize the outstanding work of our faculty to remind them that their work is important, that it is appreciated, and that their accomplishments are something for other faculty members to aspire to. In academia, our purpose is to make a positive impact on society. We do that by educating students and by creating new knowledge. When our scientists are recognized nationally and internationally at the highest levels, it confirms that impact and encourages us to keep going, to keep pursuing new knowledge.

Also at the Symposium, you can demo Faculty Insight, a new online portal that will connect you to collaborators and funding opportunities. Faculty Insight will replace the Research Expertise Discovery Suite (REDS) with some great new features, including:

–           A targeted database of funding opportunities customized to your expertise;

–           Data from multiple sources for a far more accurate, complete view of Clemson research and of opportunities available;

–           A comprehensive, editable pre-populated research profile for Clemson faculty.

Faculty Insight, developed in partnership with Academic Analytics, will be posted to the Division of Research website and available to anyone with Clemson login credentials on Wednesday. An Academic Analytics representative will be at the Research Symposium to answer your questions and provide an overview of this new platform. I encourage you to come see what opportunities Faculty Insight can unlock for you.

An exciting new feature of the Faculty Insight platform is the ability to find funding opportunities customized to your research expertise. The time to apply for funding is now. Federal budget analysts say the recently approved omnibus spending bill provides the largest year-over-year spending increase for federal research agencies since the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which was a significant boon for university research. The American Association for the Advancement of Science estimates this could bring an additional $20 billion in federal R&D spending in fiscal year 2018 (or nearly $177 billion in total).

Universities across the country will also be competing for these investments. At Clemson, we have been very competitive. Since the 2009 Recovery Act, total federal investments in university R&D have been relatively flat. During that time, however, our research expenditures and grant awards have greatly increased. We are consuming a larger piece of the pie, a testament to the strength of your proposals. Let’s continue this momentum and take advantage of this great opportunity.

Go Tigers!

Tanju

To become one of the nation’s premiere research institutions, we must break down silos and work collaboratively – with our peers, with industry and with each other. Solutions to complex global problems require new knowledge created by collaborative, interdisciplinary teams of scientists with unique perspectives and ideas.

We are collectively building these teams at Clemson, and I want to thank everyone who is engaging in collaborative research, seeking new discoveries, and working to make Clemson a leader in transformational research.

We can do more, and we want to help facilitate connections with your colleagues. Research Innovation Month and the upcoming Research Symposium offer great opportunities for this.

Research Innovation Month draws attention to the many great achievements by faculty, students and staff that have contributed to our designation as a Carnegie R1 university of the highest research activity. Events throughout Research Innovation Month raise awareness of varying research projects happening across Clemson’s campuses. I encourage you to view the Research Innovation Month calendar of events, attend an event, meet a colleague and begin sharing ideas.

Additionally, the Research Symposium on May 9 will feature numerous panel discussions and presentations designed to encourage multidisciplinary research collaboration. These panel topics have been chosen by a faculty member organizing committee for their relevance and impact. At the Symposium, the Division of Research also will announce the first recipients of the new University Research, Scholarship and Artistic Achievement Awards, a new awards program created to honor faculty who have achieved the highest levels of national and international recognition.

Collaborations with industry also are important to the ongoing success of our research enterprise. As a faculty member at Clemson, you have access to numerous tools to help facilitate successful industry collaboration through the University Industry Demonstration Partnership (UIDP), a membership-driven organization that includes many of the world’s finest companies and research universities. Our organizational membership in UIDP allows you to participate in UIDP events and webinars; to access UIDP publications and reports; to take advantage of numerous networking opportunities; and to receive valuable insights from experts. Sign up to receive insights and information from UIDP here, and visit the organization’s website here to learn more about the benefits of our membership. Anyone with a Clemson.edu email address can access members-only materials by clicking on the “Members-Only Area” button on the homepage and clicking on “Register” to set up an account.

Thank you for your ongoing commitment to research and innovation at Clemson University.

Go Tigers!

Tanju

Be ready when opportunity arises

Following decades of steady increases, federal R&D funding hit a plateau in 2011 as Congress cut discretionary spending as part of the Budget Control Act. This year, however, Congress and President Trump have discussed a budget deal that would raise the discretionary spending caps by $143 billion in fiscal year 2018 and $153 billion in fiscal year 2019.

This does not guarantee a spending increase for all federal funding agencies. But there are reasons to be optimistic that increased federal funding will equate to more grant awards to fund university research. We need to be more aggressive now in preparing and submitting our proposals, so we will have competitive proposals lined up at the agencies if or when the additional funding becomes available. Let’s seize the opportunity.

Successful accreditation

I am happy to report a successful site visit from AAALAC International, a nonprofit organization that promotes the humane treatment of animals in teaching and research through voluntary accreditation and assessment programs. This accreditation distinguishes our already strong agricultural and biomedical programs and signals to the public, to funding agencies and to others that Clemson is committed to the ethical treatment of animals and to responsible animal research. In fact, Clemson is one of the few universities that accredits its agricultural programs.

An AAALAC team including representatives from Duke University, University of North Carolina, Penn State, the Medical University of South Carolina, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service spent three days touring all of our animal research facilities and meeting with our faculty and administrators. The team has informed us they support our continued accreditation and commented favorably on the commitment and dedication demonstrated by our outstanding team of animal researchers, staff, facility managers and administrators.

Because of our participation in the AAALAC accreditation process, we operate at a higher standard, and I want to thank everyone involved for making this accreditation a success.

Don’t miss these events

We have two exciting speakers visiting campus this semester. Noted autonomous-vehicles expert Chris Gerdes will speak at 2 p.m. March 28 at the Watt Family Innovation Center. Dr. Gerdes served as the first chief innovation officer at the U.S. Department of Transportation and was part of the team that developed the Federal Automated Vehicles Policy. Details on his visit are available here.

Renowned chemist Robert H. Grubbs, who won a Nobel prize for unlocking the door for new customizable polymers and other advanced materials, will speak at Clemson University April 11. Few Nobel laureates have spoken on campus, so this is a rare opportunity for students, faculty and staff to hear from a gifted scientist whose work continues to drive innovations across many disciplines. I encourage you to attend.

Collaborate with peers

I encourage faculty from every college to submit abstracts by March 26 to participate in one of the discussions at the 2018 Research Symposium on May 9. The symposium is meant to increase interactions and collaboration between Clemson faculty, so your participation is key to the symposium’s success. The full list of session topics is listed in the call for abstracts. I hope to see you there.

Go Tigers!

Tanju

The Division of Research is accepting applications for grants to assist in the purchase of major research equipment or in the hiring of research faculty and post-doctoral researchers.

Funding is available through the Clemson Research Fellows and Clemson Major Research Instrumentation programs, two of four R-Initiative funding opportunities available this semester to spur collaborative research and boost scientific discovery.

Clemson Research Fellows provides grants to assist regular faculty, academic departments, centers and institutes in the hiring and training of qualified research faculty and post-doctoral researchers. Researchers may be hired to promote collaborative and creative interdisciplinary activities, research and demonstration projects with the goal of pursuing a large funding opportunity, building a major research program or a research center. These grants ($30,000 to $50,000 per year for each position) may run for a maximum of two years. At the end of the two-year period, the researcher position is expected to be fully supported by externally funded grants or the department. The deadline to apply is April 18.

Clemson Major Research Instrumentation(CU-MRI) program provides financial support to researchers for the purchase of major research equipment or to replace or upgrade major research equipment that will likely impact funding, scholarship and research productivity, and the probability of increased extramural funding. The equipment will have a useful life of at least five years and cost more than $50,000. The deadline to apply is May 1.

For details, guidelines and instructions for applying, visit the R-Initiatives webpage. Questions should be directed to Diana Thrasher in the Division of Research at dianas@clemson.edu or 864-656-6444.

The University Industry Demonstration Partnership, of which Clemson University is a member, hosts a free webinar at 1 p.m. Thursday to introduce university faculty to opportunities available via the National Science Foundation’s Industry-University Cooperative Research Centers program.

Preliminary proposals for the NSF program are due in April, so register for this webinar and get started. This webinar will be presented by NSF Program Director Andre Marshall.

NSF’s Industry-University Cooperative Research Centers (IUCRC) Program was initiated in 1973 to develop long-term partnerships among industry, academe, and government. NSF invests in these partnerships to promote research programs of mutual interest, contribute to the nation’s research infrastructure base, enhance the intellectual capacity of the engineering or science workforce through the integration of research and education, and facilitate technology transfer. There are currently more than 65 IUCRCs consisting of more than 180 university sites and more than 1,200 industry members.

A new faculty award developed by the Research Advisory Board will celebrate faculty members who have received national and international recognition at the highest level.

The Advisory Board, consisting of representatives from each college and the University Libraries, has been working with Tanju Karanfil, vice president for research, to develop a mechanism to induct the university’s highest-achieving faculty into a university honors society that will be recognized and celebrated annually. Recipients of this new University Research, Scholarship, and Artistic Achievement Award (URSAAA) will be lifetime URSAAA members and will be invited to participate in an annual celebration with their peers.

The URSAAA webpage includes detailed information on criteria for the award, along with information on recommending yourself or another faculty member for the inaugural class. Recommendations are due April 16. Recipients will be announced and celebrated at the 2018 Research Symposium in May.

A seasoned business executive and product-development professional has been tapped to lead the Clemson University Research Foundation (CURF).

As CURF executive director, Chris Gesswein is charged with commercializing innovative Clemson technology and intellectual property and nurturing private-sector partnerships that will advance scientific discovery at Clemson and support economic growth. Gesswein, who joined CURF in 2014 as director of licensing for technology transfer, has served as interim director since 2017.

“CURF serves as the intersection of university research and the economy. Chris’s business savvy and understanding of research-and-development will benefit Clemson faculty, industry and the South Carolina economy,” said Tanju Karanfil, vice president for research.

Prior to joining CURF, Gesswein served as vice president of business development at Ultradian Diagnostics, a start-up he helped nurture to a clinical stage medical device company while overseeing fundraising, regulatory compliance and research grants management. He has more than 20 years of experience bringing various technologies from concept to market working as a new product development and technology transfer specialist for early-stage startups as well as large multi-national companies. Gesswein also operated a consulting business to assist mid-market life-sciences companies and has been a co-author on approximately 21 federal SBIR/STTR and state technology-development grants.

Gesswein received his master’s degree in biotechnology and molecular biology from Johns Hopkins University and his bachelor’s degree from West Virginia University. He has an MBA from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York and is a member of the American Association of Clinical Chemistry, the American Society of Clinical Pathologists, the Association of University Technology Managers and the Licensing Executive Society.

“With a deep understanding of business, product development and research, Chris is well positioned to lead a great team at CURF and was an easy, unanimous choice by the board to move the organization forward,” said CURF board Chairman George Acker.

The Clemson University Research Foundation is a 501(c)(3) corporation organized exclusively for charitable, educational or scientific purposes to promote the research enterprise at Clemson University.

Through an agency agreement with the university, the foundation is commercializing intellectual property through technology transfer; licensing agreements and new venture formations; and assisting with research development through a Foundation-sponsored technology maturation program and participation in early-stage research grants and sponsored research activities.

Exploring new opportunities

We have steadily grown our research enterprise the past few years despite a plateau in federal investments in higher education R&D. Collaborations with industry or private foundations may offer alternative opportunities for you to advance your work. The Division of Research can help.

This semester, our Office of Industry Contracts – with support from the Clemson University Research Foundation and the Watt Family Innovation Center – has made a webinar series available to the campus community to help you initiate and navigate industry collaborations. The webinars bring valuable insights from top academic institutions and private industry. I encourage you to take a look at the schedule online and see how the Office of Industry Contracts can facilitate an industry collaboration for you.

Also this month, the Office of Research Development and the Office of Corporate and Foundation Relations continue their Foundation Spotlight event series with a Feb. 21 presentation on the Spencer Foundation, which invests in research on education policy and practice.

We are investing in your research, too. The Division of Research is accepting applications for internal funding from the university’s SEED program until March 7. Last year, the SEED program provided grants to faculty in every college, helping them to initiate new research or complete a scholarly project. More information is available online here.

We have been successful securing federal funding in what has been a very competitive environment. I want to remind you that some federal funding agencies require you to complete Responsible Conduct of Research training. Our Office of Research Compliance will provide opportunities in March and April for you to obtain credit hours toward this training by attending one of its Brown Bag seminars. More details are available here.

The Division of Research offers numerous events and programs throughout the year to help you advance your work. We want our events and programs to be meaningful to you and would like to hear your feedback. Please send comments, suggestions and ideas to vpr@clemson.edu. In the meantime, I hope to see you at one of our events.

I was proud to report numerous achievements to the Board of Trustees this month:

• Our performance in all Carnegie R1 metrics have improved over the past two years, with the university’s overall average ranking for R1 metrics moving up nine spots from 101 in 2014 to 92 in 2016.
• Through Jan. 1, federal grant awards were the highest of the past five years at $65 million.
• The past several years, our research expenditures have grown steadily even as federal R&D investments flattened under discretionary-spending limits put in place by the Budget Control Act of 2011.

You are doing great work. Assistant art professor Todd Anderson recently joined Pablo Picasso, Francisco Goya and David Hockney with work on display at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. History professor Edwin Moïse, meanwhile, had a lengthy article in the New York Times to discuss a key event of the Vietnam War.

This great work, and more like it, will continue to put Clemson on a world stage. Thank you for your dedication to scientific discovery and scholarship.

Go Tigers!

Tanju

The Division of Research will award grants through the Clemson Research Fellows program to assist faculty, academic departments, centers and institutes in the hiring and training of qualified research faculty and post-doctoral researchers.

Applications are due April 18 and awards will be announced May 31. Full details are available online.

Through Clemson Research Fellows, researchers may be hired to promote collaborative and creative interdisciplinary activities, research and demonstration projects with the goal of pursuing a large funding opportunity or building a major research program or a research center. These grants ($30,000 to $50,000 per year for each position) may run for a maximum of two years. At the end of the two-year period, the researcher position is expected to be fully supported by externally funded grants or the department.

Clemson Research Fellows is one of four R-Initiative funding opportunities available this semester. The R-Initiative funds are part of the ClemsonForward strategic plan, representing the “R” of the REAL priorities – Research, Engagement, the Academic core and the Living environment.

For details, guidelines and instructions for applying, visit the R-Initiatives webpage. Questions should be directed to Diana Thrasher in the Division of Research at dianas@clemson.edu or 864-656-6444.

Clemson University faculty are encouraged to apply for internal funding under the Clemson SEED program to support the initiation of research or the completion of a scholarly project or product. 

Clemson SEED (Support for Early Exploration and Development) provides two tiers of funding. Priority consideration is given to faculty who may not have large start-up packages or significant financial research support and resources.

In Tier-1 awards, projects or products for completion can include finalizing peer-reviewed publications, scholarly books, chapters in books, or showings as in the case of the visual and performing arts.

Tier-2 initiation awards must include a proposal to an external funding agency as one of its deliverables. Initiation activities can include establishing baseline data, completing a phase of a research project that will lead to greater funding opportunities or developing research partnerships with collaborators at other institutions.

The deadline to apply for a Clemson SEED grant is March 7. Full details are available online.

Last year’s SEED grants supported work by faculty in every college. A full list of last year’s recipients is available online here.

Clemson SEED is one of four R-Initiative funding opportunities available this semester. The R-Initiative funds are part of the ClemsonForward strategic plan, representing the “R” of the REAL priorities – Research, Engagement, the Academic core and the Living environment.

For details, guidelines and instructions for applying, visit the R-Initiatives webpage. Questions should be directed to Diana Thrasher in the Division of Research at dianas@clemson.edu or 864-656-6444.