April 2026 Inside the Institute Newsletter

noun (first use in 1576)

"The state of being associated with another in an action or heavy timbers brought together to strengthen a ship’s deck and securely
hold a mast in place."

“Hi, you don't know me, but I heard that your research group has a new ATR-IR spectroscopic instrument. Would you be okay with me coming over and learning how we can work together on a new project? I can bring donuts.” 

Those words from my mouth my second year of graduate school and the “team research” that resulted are representative of the highly collaborative investigator culture in the Fralin Life Sciences Institute and across Virginia Tech — a culture that was a major driving force for my decision to join this community.

It is exciting to be a part of that culture, while anticipating, predicting, and helping foster potential partnerships. It is truly thrilling to see some of those collaborations come to fruition and bear fruit.

As evidenced in this newsletter, some of the predictions made in the January Inside the Institute are coming true. Importantly, unexpected partnerships between Institute affiliates and other global leaders are blazing trails to new destinations at the frontiers of life and molecular sciences, including:

• Collaborative co-teaching program between Virginia Tech and the University of Embu in Kenya, Africa;
• Virginia Tech-Purdue-US Forest Service project aimed at restoring the endangered butternut tree;
• Co-center (Center for Emerging, Zoonotic, and Arthropod-borne Pathogens and Global Change Center) investigator project about soil pathogens supported by the Institute for Society, Culture, and Environment (ISCE); and
• Science on Tap series, a partnership between Sigma Xi and the Center for Communicating Science, the latter founded and sustained by a collaboration between the Institute and ISCE.

These amazing outcomes result from your constant pursuit of excellence by driving our mission of improving the human condition as we are guided by our North Star vision — an environment with affiliates achieving more than the sum of the parts. 

We are motivated by these successes to further strengthen partnerships with the Office of Research and Innovation, the Office of the Provost, and college/unit leadership, while also leveraging those to create unprecedented new partnerships with other university leaders in the Commonwealth.

The historic partnership between Virginia Tech and Virginia Commonwealth University regarding the first-of-its-kind collaborative genomics facility and its NPR-disseminated impact resulted because of an idea had over a year ago by Director of Research Facilities Infrastructure Andy Baltzegar (also a mystery writer). 

Similarly, the VT Coastal Collaborator in Hampton is continuing to benefit from another watershed moment regarding its partnership with 6 other coastal state entities as one of US EPA’s Center of Excellence for Stormwater Control Infrastructure Technologies. 

Both partnerships will likely benefit from the computational capabilities on the horizon from the Department of Energy’s High Performance Data Facility at the Jefferson Lab, for which Virginia Tech was recently announced as the lead managing university of a Commonwealth coalition.

It is awe inspiring to see affiliates and Institute collaborators raise the FLSI sails on the masts of the Foresee (4C) strategic framework: culture, collaborate, catalyze, and communicate, which are supported by those important partnerships, and creatively harness the current storm winds we are facing to cross disciplinary boundaries and safely navigate uncharted research waters.

Let's go Hokies, and let’s go FLSI!

P.S. April’s edition of the Fralin Fiddler crossword puzzle can be found here. Last month’s solutions are available now!