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CIPHER is a university-wide research center with constituents from the College of Computing and Informatics, Klein College of Science, College of Engineering, College of Health and Human Services, and the College of Education. Our goals are to coalesce expertise in computer science, bioinformatics, software and information systems, biological sciences, math, geography, public health, data science, education, and communications.

Landmark genome study unmasks the 65-million-year origins of bats

Laurel Yohe, Ph.D., assistant professor of bioinformatics at The University of North Carolina at Charlotte, is among the co-authors of a landmark study of bat genomes published this week in Nature. The study is the largest combined bat genome and fossil study ever undertaken. Led by the international Bat1K consortium, including 137 researchers from 64 countries, the study combined 103 bat genomes, representing every one of the 21 recognized bat families, with 44 fossil specimens. Bat1K aims to sequence the genomes of more than 1,400 living bat species. The paper is notable progress towards that goal.

Yohe’s involvement in the global effort reflects a broader mission she leads at UNC Charlotte to train the next generation of scientists to study bats and the diseases they carry. She directs an International Research Experiences for Students program, Better Access for Training Scientists, BATS, in Methods to Conserve Bats and Detect Emerging Pathogens (National Science Foundation Award No. 2505439, $449,987). Each year through IRES, Yohe sends up to eight U.S. undergraduate and graduate students to the Center for Biodiversity and Endangered Species in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. There, students sample bat biodiversity in national parks around Vietnam and use low-cost “backpack laboratory” tools to sequence molecular data and monitor pathogens found in bat populations. Read the full story here…

Morgan Carter receives NSF CAREER award for bacterial-fungal interaction study

Morgan Carter, assistant professor of biological sciences in the UNC Charlotte Klein College of Science and CIPHER center, has received a prestigious National Science Foundation CAREER award to advance understanding of how bacteria influence and communicate with the fungi they inhabit.

Carter’s research examines how bacteria living inside fungi use specialized secretion systems, molecular “syringes” and “harpoons,” to deliver proteins that alter fungal behavior. Although fungi play critical roles as pathogens, mutualists and nutrient cyclers, scientists are still learning more about how bacterial partners shape fungal biology.

View the full story here

CIPHER Center hosts Triangle Center for Evolutionary Medicine

This summer, CIPHER hosted the UNC Charlotte Launch Meeting with TriCEM. Based in North Carolina, this research incubator explores the intersection of evolutionary science and human, animal, and plant health.

TriCEMis an interdisciplinary incubator in NC that promotes innovative developments in the theory & practice of evolutionary medicine.

Learn more at tricem.org/

UNC Charlotte research team expands tick surveillance through field work and lab expertise to improve public health in Mecklenburg County

It’s 90 degrees in the open fields of Cowan’s Ford Wildlife Refuge in northwestern Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. All sun, no breeze. The students — on this day it’s one from public health, two from biology and one recent biology graduate — are hunched over scanning the grassland.

They are hunting ticks, parasitic arachnids about the size of apple seeds. Their hunting gear amounts to nothing more than a handmade flag — one square meter of white flannel attached to a wooden pole.

The students look like breadsticks poking out of a leafy, green salad as they gently sweep their flags back and forth across the foliage in hopes the ticks will attach to the fabric. This flagging method is one of the main ways to capture environmental ticks, which Read the full story...

Check out the CIPHER Podcast

“de-CIPHERing Infectious Disease”

explores the cutting-edge interdisciplinary research happening at UNC Charlotte’s CIPHER Research Center. Each episode features an in-depth interview with one of CIPHER’s researchers, allowing them to discuss their background, current projects, and the exciting team science approach they take to tackle complex issues at the intersection of health, environment, data science, genomics, infectious disease, and more.