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CIPHER is a university-wide research center with constituents from the College of Computing and Informatics, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, 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.

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Featured News

$5 million NSF grant to expand STEM pathways to UNC Charlotte for community college students

UNC Charlotte has received $2 million as part of a $5 million grant from the National Science Foundation to expand a successful regional partnership that strengthens STEM pathways for academically talented, low‑income students.

The new award builds on the earlier SPARC 4 initiative and launches SPARC 6, a five‑institution collaboration designed to improve retention, transfer and graduation rates in biology, computer science and data science. The new $5 million grant will offer scholarships to students at UNC Charlotte and four North Carolina community colleges. The latest grant brings the multiyear total to more than $9.5 million in funding to support students seeking degrees in STEM fields. Read More…

UNC Charlotte researchers use AI to map out world’s largest cultivated bacteria-killing virus

Through cutting-edge methods and advanced artificial intelligence analysis, UNC Charlotte researchers leading a multidisciplinary team across four universities have successfully resolved the entire genome of “phage G,” the largest bacterial virus (aka bacteriophages or phages) ever cultivated in a physical lab environment.

Published Sept. 30 in leading journal Nature’s NPJ Viruses, the study was led by UNC Charlotte master’s students Andra Buchan and Stephanie Wiedman along with UNC Charlotte Assistant Professor of Bioinformatics and Genomics Richard Allen White III.

Read the full story

Luo Lab awarded a new grant from the National Science Foundation

Biological Sciences Professor and Researcher, Dr. Elaine Luo was awarded $699k from NSF for a project to study the “Viral impacts on microbial carbon cycling at deep-sea hydrothermal vents“. This project aims to identify the diversity, mechanisms, and rates of virus-induced carbon cycling in a deep-sea hydrothermal vent system (Axial Seamount). While chemoautotrophic microbes are known to contribute to these hotspots of primary productivity, the functional role and biogeochemical impacts of viruses that infect them remain critical gaps in our understanding of
the dark ocean’s carbon cycle. Read the full abstract here.

Reitzel Lab Awarded Collaborative 1.5M NSF Award

Congratulations to Adam Reitzel Ph.D on his new award from NSF/BIO-UKRI/BBSRC “The role of gene copy number variation in host-microbe interactions”. It is a 4-year grant ($1.5M total, $650K to UNC Charlotte) and is a collaborative project with a UK partner.

With funding from the National Science Foundation, the Reitzel lab will use a coastal sea anemone (Nematostella vectensis) to study the impact of copy number variation of key immune genes in the ecological and evolutionary dynamics of this symbiosis.

UNC Charlotte marks 1 year as R1 institution

Feb. 13 marked the first anniversary of UNC Charlotte becoming a Research 1 (R1) institution, which has brought many changes to the University’s research and technology operations. Read more…

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.