Welcome to the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute

[00:00:06] >> Hi. I'm Mike Friedlander, the Executive Director of the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at Virginia Tech Carilion. This is one of the most incredible places in the world to do cross disciplinary research converging on answering some of the most important problems and challenges facing human kind today in health. [00:00:25] We want to understand the fundamental mechanisms of how propagation of electrical activation occurs in cardiac muscle. So we're really interested in understanding how the individual connections between neurons are changed or remodeled during learning. I'm studying a region in the brain called lateral geniculate nucleus. It's part of visual thalamus and it's one of the first places to receive inputs from the retina. [00:00:53] I'm studying very early brain development trying to understand the cellular and molecular mechanisms that allow our brains to wire properly. We use a strategic multi-disciplinary approach to converge on problems from many directions at once. This allows our investigators to tackle and solve some of the most challenging problems in the biomedical sciences. [00:01:14] Indicative of that success is the fact that our investigators receive federally funded research grants at better than 3 times the national average rate. Going to a lot of different interviews you know everyone's going to say that they're collaborative and they help you write grants and they help your research program but you can really tell that it was authentic here. [00:01:32] People who would not have thought to collaborate across certain disciplines now do it routinely. Everyone is very willing to collaborate and share skills. So in my last 2 years I've picked up a whole lot of skills from various different fields and I feel like a lot of people at other institutions maybe aren't able to get. [00:01:54] It's bringing together some of the most improbable, highly accomplished, highly original scientists I've ever worked with. The Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at Virginia Tech Carilion was founded in 2010. Sure, we're newer and smaller than a lot of research institutes in the world but we're growing every day as an evidence by the doubling of our size with the addition of a new research building and the impact of our investigators work on health worldwide including receiving over $125 million dollars in active research grants in effect today. [00:02:27] I don't think I know of another place in the country that has developed as fast as this place. I just felt there was an energy and a vision about what was being built here that I very much wanted to be a part of. The energy really makes this place unique and special and all of the faculty here have been extremely successful partly because of that energy partly because of the state of the art technologies and I think an important part of it is also the leadership here; both the leadership within the Institute but also from Virginia Tech. [00:03:04] The leadership here does a really good job of clearing the red tape so that we can focus on research and they're really supportive in terms of getting us equipment and facilities in order to do really cutting edge science here. Roanoke, Virginia is a beautiful mountain city that offers big city amenities. [00:03:20] If you like to hike, bike, get on the water, enjoy good food, art and festivals and also going to work every day in an elite academic research environment, then this is the place for you. When I got asked to be here I thought I was being asked to be a member of the A-Team. [00:03:36] It made me want to run harder and work more to achieve some significant ends. I really love this place because apart from having good science the community around you is very accepting of you not just for your scientific contributions but for how different you are. Whether you're a graduate student, post-doctoral fellow, a junior or a senior faculty member, the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at Virginia Tech Carilion is the place to be. [00:04:05] Come join us and be part of tomorrow today!