A center of excellence in research is not built overnight.
Not even in five years or 10. It takes time.
That’s why the National Institutes of Health (NIH) established the Centers for Biomedical Research Excellence (COBREs), to help universities build comprehensive research programs.
These centers are generally led by a principal investigator who is an established biomedical research scientist with expertise central to the research theme of the center. Key ingredients are collaborative and multidisciplinary projects, the funding and mentoring of young investigators, and the creation of an infrastructure that enhances core lab facilities at participating institutions.
COBRE grants are awarded in three five-year phases to assure that the Centers are fully developed at the end of the NIH support.
The COBRE program is part of the Institutional Development Award program which builds research capacities in states that historically have had low levels of NIH funding by supporting research development in undergraduate institutions and in graduate research institutions (COBRE).
The University of Nebraska currently has seven COBRE grants in various phases. These COBREs are centered at UNMC as well as at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) and the University of Nebraska-Omaha. An eighth COBRE is based at Boys Town National Research Hospital (BTNRH).
UNMC itself is home to one Phase II and two Phase III COBREs, one of which is a collaboration with investigators at BTNRH and Creighton University. UNMC researchers also collaborate extensively on a fourth COBRE based at UNL (see story page 21), although many other collaborations have developed between faculty members associated with the COBREs.
COBRE support comes in three sequential five-year phases:
- Phase I focuses on developing research infrastructure and providing junior investigators with formal mentoring and research project funding to help them acquire preliminary data and successfully compete for independent research grant support.
- Phase II seeks to strengthen each center through further improvements in research infrastructure and continuing development and support of a critical mass of investigators with shared scientific interests. After 10 years of COBRE support, centers are expected to be able to compete successfully for other sources of research funding.
- Phase III transitional centers provide support for maintaining COBRE research cores developed during phases I and II, and sustain a collaborative, multidisciplinary research environment with pilot project programs and mentoring and training components.
Two of UNMC’s COBRE grants have reached phase III – the third has just entered phase II. Now that the last phase is reached, UNMC will apply this year for a new COBRE grant to build another area of excellence, said Jennifer Larsen, M.D., vice chancellor for research. The following stories recap the progress of UNMC’s three COBRE grants.