Welcome to Global Viral
Global Viral (GV) is an independent non-profit research organization focusing on innovative and disruptive research in Ecology, Biodiversity and Public Health. The organization has deep ties with universities, government labs and research institutes in California, and seeks to advance research by fostering multidisciplinary collaboration, developing new technologies and training the next generation of scientists to undertake novel, high-risk high-reward projects.
Collecting sample metadata in the Mono Lake region
Dried blood spots from bushmeat and hunters to study zoonotic transmission
Collecting interesting microbes from the Atacama Desert, Chile
Collecting sample metadata in the Mono Lake region
We are very excited to announce the launch of the Laboratory for Research in Complex Systems!!
Visit the LRC website for more details.
September 25, 2019
Announcements & Press
GV's breathless summer
September 2019, San Francisco: We have probably had our busiest summer ever at GV! We submitted 2 grants and are about to submit a third! Tomas first paper is in production, and Jessica's work got mentioned in Quanta, Jean-Marie won a flash talk award at the Bay Area Biosciences meeting, we have new collaborators, we are recruiting, and much more.....! Watch out for plenty of new updates in the coming weeks and months!
Dr. Matthew Koehler advances to GV Fellow
May 2019, San Francisco: Matthew Koehler, postdoctoral researcher jointly with GV and NASA/JPL (co-supervised by Dr. Ken Williford) was promoted to GV Fellow in recognition of his scientific merit and for advancing GV's science in Biogeochemistry and evolution of metabolic pathways. The fellowship position, which is aimed at preparing promising candidates for careers as professional scientists, will allow Dr. Koehler to explore grants, supervise students and build independent research collaborations. Heartiest congrats to Dr. Koehler, we wish him the best! You can meet him at AbSciCon 2019, where he is convening a session on "Preparing for Laboratory Analysis of Diverse Biosignatures in Returned Mars Samples."
Boundaries of Life project awarded Moore Foundation grant
March 2019, San Francisco: The Boundaries of Life (BoL) Research Initiative, a multi-year, multi-institutional collaborative project jointly undertaken by Global Viral, Stanford, Caltech, The Joint Genome Institute (JGI) and NASA/JPL, was awarded a large grant by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation to continue work on assessing the bounds and parameters of life on earth, and on identification and characterization of new microbial forms. The grant will help support project work till mid-2021, providing researchers and students with new opportunities to examine normal and extreme environments for novel forms of life.
GV announces partnership with HELM System Solutions
November 2018, San Francisco: Global Viral will partner with HELM System Solutions, an Arlington VA based provider of solutions to help clients gain access to Federal and commercial markets. The partnership will bring the latest scientific advances at the nexus of information, complexity and synthetic biology to the Federal government. HELM System Solutions is a boutique firm that enhances U.S. competitiveness and strength through technology development and transition across Federal and commercial markets. HELM applies creativity, business savvy, technical depth and systems thinking to assist clients in developing solutions to long standing challenges in the life, physical, and social sciences.
Dr. Anne Hillegas
CEO
HELM System Solutions
"As Global Viral's COO I am excited to be partnering with HELM System Solutions. Anne Hillegas and her team bring a unique blend of technical expertise and creative thinking to assist Global Viral's strategic growth. With HELMS support, Global Viral will enhance and leverage our research programs and offerings to improve our competitiveness in the Governmental Funding space. Global Viral looks forward to building relationships with these new partners and collaborators."
- Samantha Lekus, COO, Global Viral
Project updates
Boundaries of Life (BoL)
ICS Program
Transitions
Mar '19: BoL team meets for project updates; members share exciting results and upcoming experiments and papers
Mar '19: GV Fellow Jessica Lee selected for the Complex Systems summer school at the Santa Fe Institute
June '19: GV-JGI postdoc Tomas Tyml's paper accepted in Philosophical Transactions B
Mar '19: GV-JGI postdoc Tomas Tyml selected for Poster Introduction talk at the Nelli Meeting
Dec '18: BoL team completes a very productive retreat in Napa!
Nov '18: GV-JGI team now permitted to sample water in Alum Rock Park for interesting symbioses in microbes
Mar '19: PI Shailesh Date speaks at JPL's Center for Excellence within the Planetary Protection group on "Life as Information: Exploring the Paradigm"
Watch the BoL mini-documentary (hanks to Schema47 for the production)!
Oct '18: GV-JGI Fellow Jean-Marie Volland completes sampling in Castle Lake, with Dr. Sudeep Chandra from Univ. of Nevada at Reno
Sep '19: GV abstract selected for a full grant to study biological complexity by examining biophysical and biochemical properties of proteins and their interactions networks
Partners
