Research

Student working in lab.

The BioInspired Institute was created to build on Syracuse University’s world class expertise in complex biological systems and innovative materials by focusing resources and interdisciplinary collaboration in areas where we can be or quickly become an international leader. Our focus areas provide a roadmap for developing complementary expertise that will accelerate discovery, innovation, testing and commercialization of technologies that solve society’s pressing problems.

Focus Groups

BioInspired’s scientific areas are organized into thematic Focus Groups, which constitute the hubs of the Institute’s scientific activities. They serve to enhance existing collaborations between Members and forge new ones, maximize the potential for extramural funding, and serve as focal points for interdisciplinary training programs. There are normally two leaders for each Focus Group. The Institute’s Focus Groups are:

The Focus Groups are truly the beating scientific heart of BioInspired’s community, with groups meeting periodically during the semester and summers. Focus Group meetings are relatively small, with 10-15 attendees from across BioInspired’s academic departments. Attendees are mostly faculty, but trainees are welcome, and presenters have been approximately split between faculty and trainees.

Seed Grant Program

In support of its mission to promote such world-class, interdisciplinary research, the Institute created an intramural grant program in 2020 to enhance interdisciplinary collaborations with the goals of increasing its members’ scholarly output and competitiveness for extramural funding. These awards are viewed as seed funding to build interdisciplinary teams and produce preliminary data toward writing competitive extramural funding proposals, especially center grant funding.