Internal funding boosts research in AI-powered ecology and immune system regulation

Two College of Science faculty have received internal research awards to spark high-impact projects in ecosystem science and bone health.

Through the Science Research and Innovation Seed (SciRIS) program funded by Education and General (E&G) funds and through several foundation funds, the College of Science continues to invest in bold ideas with the potential to secure external funding and shift paradigms in scientific understanding. SciRIS-ii awards support individual investigators pursuing creative, high-impact research, while the SciRIS-Disease Mechanism and Prevention Fund (DMPF) funds projects focused on disease mechanisms, diagnosis or prevention.

This round of funding supports biologist Mark Novak and biochemist Adrian Gombart, whose work addresses urgent global questions from climate-driven shifts in marine food webs to the genetic underpinnings of immune system function.

Mark Novak is training AI to improve climate-resilient fisheries management.

Artificial intelligence reveals clues in predator diets

Mark Novak is training AI to improve climate-resilient fisheries management. Understanding how predators and prey interact is central to managing healthy ecosystems, but analyzing diet data from marine predators is notoriously time-consuming and incomplete. Novak, an associate professor of integrative biology, is taking a bold approach: enlisting large language models (LLMs) to help locate and extract critical data from over a century of scientific literature.

His project, funded by a SciRIS-ii award, builds on a metric created by his lab called the “fraction of feeding individuals.” This metric, the proportion of surveyed predators with non-empty stomachs, may hold the key to understanding how predator-prey dynamics respond to body size, temperature and climate change.

Novak’s lab has already shown that this simple measure correlates with key ecological outcomes like extinction risk, prey suppression and population resilience. However, locating datasets with the right information has proven labor-intensive.

Partnering with computer scientists, librarians and historians, Novak will train LLMs to scan published and archival sources and build a richer dataset. This project also provides valuable training for undergraduate and graduate students across biology and computer science, encouraging cross-disciplinary fluency in ecological AI.

Adrian Gombart, professor of biochemistry and biophysics.

Adrian Gombart is uncovering how vitamin D shapes immune cell behavior.

Uncovering how an immune peptide helps keep bones strong

Adrian Gombart is uncovering a surprising new link between immunity and bone health. His team has found that cathelicidin, an antimicrobial peptide normally known for defending against infection and aiding wound healing, also plays a key role in maintaining strong bones. In mice lacking the cathelicidin gene, cancellous (spongy) bone mass dropped by about 30% — a deficit completely restored when the human version of the gene was introduced.

Gombart, a professor of biochemistry and biophysics, and principal investigator and Helen P. Rumbel professor of microcurrent research at the Linus Pauling Institute, is now testing how cathelicidin influences the balance between osteoblasts (bone builders) and osteoclasts (bone degraders). The project, supported by the Disease Mechanism and Prevention Fund, uses genetically engineered mice, cell cultures and bone imaging to uncover how vitamin D–regulated cathelicidin shifts bone turnover toward growth and repair.

The implications stretch far beyond basic science. As fractures, osteoporosis and implant failures rise with an aging population, new therapies are urgently needed. By revealing cathelicidin’s hidden role in bone biology, Gombart’s research could open the door to vitamin D–based strategies that strengthen bones, speed healing and improve outcomes for millions of patients.

To learn more about SciRIS and DMPF, click here.

College of Science

Artificial intelligence reveals clues in predator diets

Uncovering how an immune peptide helps keep bones strong

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