The NC TraCS Institute's new cycle of Clinical and Translational Science (CTS) Pilot funding has been announced. Proposals are due July 8, 2025.

First released in 2022, CTS Pilots are focused on translational science. In preparation for this cycle of CTS Pilots, NC TraCS is holding 1-hour information sessions for investigators interested in learning more about this funding opportunity. Join the CTS Pilot Program leadership to hear about this pilot funding opportunity and have your questions answered.

Presenters
David Peden, MD, MS
CTS Pilot Program Module Lead, NC TraCS Institute
Senior Associate Dean for Translational Research, UNC School of Medicine

David Carroll, PhD
Director of Research Funding Development, NC TraCS Institute

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Data Visualization for Social Science Research

This course introduces modern visual data exploration and communication methods to social scientists with limited prior experience. Students will learn to effectively present data to diverse audiences across multiple formats. The course utilizes the R programming language, RStudio development environment, and the tidyverse suite of R packages—with particular emphasis on ggplot2—for data processing and visualization.

Students will develop skills to confidently explore data descriptively, communicate findings to both academic and general audiences, and refine model results for presentations and publications. The course emphasizes both clarity and aesthetic considerations in data visualization, while incorporating best practices for practical, efficient, and reproducible workflows. Through a unified toolset, students will learn to display visualizations effectively across web platforms, academic papers, reports, and presentations.

Prerequisites include a basic understanding of fundamental data and statistical concepts, as well as basic familiarity with the R language. No prior experience with the tidyverse or ggplot2 is required. The course materials will consist of a series of R Markdown chapters that will serve as our textbook, which will be made available to all participants.

For software and hardware requirements, we will be using Posit Cloud, a cloud version of R. This approach eliminates installation and troubleshooting time, allowing us to focus more on learning.

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Accelerate your ideas through customer discovery and market opportunity validation!

KickStart Venture Services is recruiting community startups as well as faculty, post-doctoral fellows, graduate students, and undergraduate students with innovations and an interest in commercialization to participate in their virtual NSF I-Corps program. They will teach you the principles of customer discovery to help you better understand the market potential of your innovation!

The National Science Foundation’s Innovation Corps Program (I-Corps) was launched in 2011 and has quickly become one of the world’s largest and most successful technology commercialization accelerators. The I-Corps regional program helps researchers and aspiring innovators determine if they are solving a real-world problem with true market opportunity. NSF’s I-Corps Program not only provides funding, mentoring, and networking opportunities to help commercialize promising technologies, it is offered at NO COST to the community.

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For more information about the I-Corps Program, visit KickStart Venture Services.

Powering Team Science Through Strategic Communication

The Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI) at UNC-Chapel Hill is excited to announce the next event from Accelerating Collaborative Team Science (ACTS) — a Team Science educational program.

ACTS functions as a connector, bridging the gap between researchers, coordinating centers, and other parties involved in practicing and promoting collaborative team science theory and practical applications across the scientific research landscape. With twenty years of experience coordinating team science efforts, RENCI provides a unique vantage point for those seeking to understand the role of the coordinating center and the challenges specific to large, geographically dispersed scientific teams.

In today’s complex research landscape, outstanding science capabilities are important, but they aren’t enough. For collaborative teams, the ability to drive real-world impacts relies on good science communications practices. In this follow-up to a previous webinar on bridging the gaps between science and the public, four science communication experts will engage in a series of mini-fireside chats and a Q and A, addressing how research teams can leverage science communication to accelerate collaboration, appropriately amplify discoveries, and connect meaningfully with those beyond their research fields.

This session will help collaborative science teams engage in the clear, consistent, audience-aware communications to advance research goals and translate their work to the larger scientific community and beyond. Join the RENCI ACTS team and their invited experts as they unpack the practices, mindsets, and strategies that make science communications such a force in collaborative research.

Learn more at renci.org/team-science/.

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Please join the UNC Institute for Global Health and Infectious Diseases for a PAUSE Seminar featuring Tessa Andermann, PhD, Assistant Professor of Medicine, discussing anaerobic antibiotics, the gut microbiome, and CAR-T outcomes. Connect with colleagues. Bagels and coffee provided at the in-person seminar.

Location: Bioinformatics Building, room 1131

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Cluster analysis

The NC TraCS Biostatistics Seminar Series is appropriate for those with a basic familiarity with statistics. These seminars introduce topics not often included in STATS 101. In this seminar, Jeff Laux, PhD, will discuss how to recognize clusters of patients that are similar, or not, to each other.

Please note: This event will not be recorded. Materials such as slides or handouts will be shared with documented attendees only. Attendance may be determined through Zoom meeting attendance reports.

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Fluid REStriction in Heart failure versus liberal fluid UPtake: The FRESH-UP Study

This NIH Collaboratory Rethinking Clinical Trials Grand Rounds features:

Roland RJ van Kimmenade, MD, PhD
Cardiologist, Radboud University Medical Center
Nijmegen, the Netherlands

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