Department of Biology

The National Science Foundation has awarded a five-year, $12.5 million grant to a collaborative, interdisciplinary team of 28 professors from microbiology, plant biology, entomology, ecology, evolution, computational biology, and education to establish a Biology Integration Institute. The new institute, Genomics and Eco-evolution of Multi-scale Symbioses (GEMS), will include molecular, organismal, computational, and theoretical approaches. It will be based in the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Irene Newton, a microbiologist and associate professor in the Indiana University College of Arts and Sciences Department of Biology, will help lead the team as a co-PI. Other team leaders are PI Rachel Whitaker, professor of microbiology; Co-PI Carla Cáceres, professor of evolution, ecology, and behavior; Co-PI Katy Heath, an associate professor of plant biology (all from the University of Illinois); and Co-PI Mercedes Pascual, professor of ecology and evolution (from the University of Chicago). In addition to the faculty researchers, the team will include postdoctoral trainees, graduate students, and undergraduates.

"The inspiration behind GEMS is to integrate biology since, all too often, fields of biology are siloed by funding, approach, language, and culture," said Whitaker. "Surprisingly, some of the most significant divides on many campuses are between molecular and organismal approaches to biology. Because microbes lie at the interface between these spheres, our focus is on bringing the natural microbial world into view to integrate biology."

"Symbiosis is the process where two organisms come together to form emergent traits that neither has alone," Whitaker added. "GEMS recognizes that all around us there are nested symbioses, with microbes like bacteria and viruses at their center. We see this in many ways as conceptually similar to bringing together molecular and organismal approaches into a unified biology."

"Symbioses already unify biology as nearly every living animal and plant harbors a microbial symbiont and each of our cells harbors the remnants of an ancient symbiont—the mitochondrion," said Newton. "It's clear that symbioses have dramatically altered the evolution of life on the planet and that they continue to have strong eco-evo influences on life."

GEMS researchers will address the fundamental biological question: How do symbioses unify biology, from molecule to ecosystem? They will examine the interaction between clover and honey bees as a model to understand the dynamics of the microbes nested within them as well as how molecular interactions impact the ecosystem and develop predictive models of symbioses broadly.

Along with the traditional academic silos dividing researchers into molecular and organismal units that prevent a unified view of biology are many others—such as those separating microbe from macrobe; plant from animal; student from faculty; education from research; and diversity, equity, and inclusion from science.

One way that GEMS will address the separation of diversity and science involves expanding the Indiana University Jim Holland Summer Science Program. The Holland program invites high-achieving, underrepresented high school students to one- and two-week sessions at the university to work with researchers in the sciences, with a goal of stimulating the students to continue their education beyond high school and, thus, increase diversity in the STEM fields.

NSF funding will allow the team to work toward a bold vision using the study of symbiosis to integrate across science, to support the best approaches across these institutions, to thoughtfully and effectively engage K-12 students and the broader public, and to break down historical barriers to creative and groundbreaking idea generation.

"What we don't truly understand is how genetic and molecular mechanisms used by microbes to interact with their hosts translates to large scale ecological and evolutionary processes," said Newton. "With this institute, we will study biology at multiple scales (from genetic and microbial to organismal, ecological, and evolutionary) and involve multiple disciplines within and outside of biology to fill these gaps in knowledge."

Newton's research focuses on mechanisms of symbiosis, genomics, and bioinformatics. Other IU Department of Biology faculty researchers on the GEMS team are Associate Professor Jennifer Lau, studying field ecology and rapid evolution; Professor Jay Lennon, studying microbial communities and evolutionary ecology; and Distinguished Professor Michael Wade, studying population biology and co-evolution.