About the Gulf Coast Consortia
The GCC delivers important advances in bioscience research and training by empowering individuals to go beyond the limitations of any single institution, discipline or degree program.
Located in Houston’s Texas Medical Center, GCC is one of the largest inter-institutional cooperatives in the world with a focus on building strong collaborative research groups and interdisciplinary training opportunities for PhD students and postdocs. GCC brings together the strengths of its member institutions to build interdisciplinary collaborative research teams and training programs in biological sciences at their intersection with the computational, chemical, mathematical, and physical sciences. GCC provides a unique, cutting edge collaborative training environment and research infrastructure beyond the capability of any single institution. Its mission is to train the next generation of biomedical scientists and to enable scientists to ask and answer questions that cross scientific disciplines to address the challenging biological issues of our time and, ultimately, to apply the resulting expertise and knowledge to the treatment and prevention of disease.
GCC is composed of seven prominent and geographically proximate Houston-Galveston area institutions:
Created in 2001 through an operating agreement signed by the president of each member institution, the GCC represents an unprecedented degree of inter-institutional cooperation to facilitate training programs and research teams contributing in important new or growing disciplines, including interdisciplinary fields such as biomedical informatics, chemical genomics and neuroengineering. Leaders of the GCC member institutions recognize that the scale and complexity of today’s biomedical research problems increasingly require scientists to move beyond traditional single investigator or single discipline projects. They have publicly articulated their support for the GCC as a model for collaboration. They acknowledge the strategic benefits in merging their institutions’ unique and highly complementary strengths and capabilities, recognize the challenges of melding different institutional cultures and missions, and they value the GCC’s effectiveness as a mechanism for managing inter-institutional interactions. In 2001 the GCC was created with a $3.5M gift from the W. M. Keck Foundation to foster collaborative research and training.
The GCC is comprised of a training arm, the Keck Center, and a research arm, with multiple communities focused on specific areas of interest to the GCC’s participating faculty.
The GCC Oversight Committee, the GCC’s governing body, is comprised of Institution Representatives appointed by each member institution president, along with training and research executive committee leaders, chairs emeriti and GCC staff leaders. In addition to providing strategic direction, governance and operational guidance for the GCC, this group provides formal approval for new consortium start-up and, through the institutional roles of its members, insures alignment of consortium interests with the strategic interests of GCC member institutions. GCC Oversight Committee Institutional Representatives for 2018 include: Michelle (Shelley) Barton, MD Anderson; Michael Blackburn, UTHealth; Peter Davies, IBT, past chair; Amr Elnashai, UH; David Niesel, UTMB; Yousif Shamoo, Rice, interim chair; and Ted Wensel, BCM. Also serving on the Oversight Committee are Kathy Matthews, Rice, chair emeritus; Lydia Kavraki, Rice, Keck Center Executive Committee chair; Ed Nikonowicz, Rice, Research Consortia Executive Committee chair; Karen Ethun, GCC Executive Director; Melissa Glueck, Keck Center Director; and Suzanne Tomlinson, GCC Research Programs Director.
The training arm of the GCC, the Keck Center, currently supports over 50 trainees through competitive grants from federal and state agencies, and has over 400 affiliated faculty. Within the Keck Center, the emphasis is on continuing its 25-year successful tradition of fostering interdisciplinary and multi-institutional training. The Keck Center provides a unique intellectual and physical setting in which to train the next generation of scientists with expertise in multiple disciplines, able to reach across boundaries to advance insight and understanding. The Keck Executive Committee formulates training policy in terms of didactic courses, seminars, workshops, retreats, selecting trainees, and advising Keck Fellows and mentors, while leaving individual program directors latitude to tailor the implementation of these to the unique needs of their program.
The GCC’s research arm is comprised of consortia and clusters, which serve to catalyze interactions and provide a supportive environment for collaborative research programs that require expertise beyond that available in any one institution. Currently, the Research Consortia support over 700 faculty engaged with consortia in the following areas: Antimicrobial Resistance, Chemical Genomics, Theoretical and Computational Neuroscience, Translational Pain Research, and Regenerative Medicine. Clusters, such as NanoX, Alcohol and Addiction Research, Mental Health Research, Cellular and Molecular Biophysics, and Translational Imaging, form when faculty come together around a common goal or interest, establish a working vision, and engage interest among the broader faculty community in the GCC. When there is critical mass to commit to a shared vision, the researchers are encouraged to apply to the GCC Oversight Committee for the formation of a new cluster.
Faculty
The Gulf Coast Consortium’s leadership is composed of accomplished academics by their own right from a variety of disciplines, whose professional focus is now helping bring light to the gray areas that have traditionally existed between the conventional boundaries separating academic institutions and disciplines.
Carrie Cerda
Carrie Cerda
GCC Accounting Assistant III
Carrie Cerda joined the GCC in 2014 and has over 15 years of banking, finance, and accounting experience. Carrie provides bookkeeping and accounting support for the GCC office. This includes accounting for both department funds and research funds through the NIH, NSF and CPRIT. She also reviews, processes, and reconciles invoices and expenses and provides detailed expenditure and budgetary reports to the Executive Director. Carrie previously worked in corporate and energy banking, and holds a Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of St. Thomas.
Vanessa C. Herrera
Vanessa C. Herrera
Assistant Director, Keck Center Training
Vanessa Herrera joined the GCC as Assistant Director of Keck Center Training in 2015. In addition to managing our weekly Keck Seminar series, Vanessa oversees several GCC/Keck Center training programs (Molecular Biophysics, Neuroengineering, Integrative Pharmacology) as well as the Computational Cancer Biology Summer Undergraduate program. Vanessa studied Biomedical Sciences at Texas A&M University then earned her Executive MBA from Texas Woman’s University. She began her career in 2005 as a research assistant at UTHealth then continued her role as a researcher at the University of Houston’s Center for Experimental Therapeutics. Most recently, she was Senior Sponsored Programs Analyst at Baylor College of Medicine and the Texas Children’s Cancer Center.
Karen Ethun
Karen Ethun
GCC Executive Director
Karen Ethun joined the GCC in 2005 and has been executive director since 2006. She is engaged with all aspects of the GCC including training and research programs and initiatives, special funding initiatives, new initiatives and workshops, and the development of proposals to NIH, NISF and CPRIT. Karen also works with GCC leadership to ensure long-term support and strategic growth of the GCC and with faculty to develop newly forming research and training groups. Prior to joining the GCC, Karen was director of business development for a contract research organization focused on getting drugs, biologics and devices through clinical trials and the FDA approval process. She is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin.
Melissa Glueck
Melissa Glueck
Director, Keck Center
Melissa Glueck joined the GCC in 2006 and has been Director of the Keck Center since 2015. She is integrally involved in developing, creating, and administering complex, inter-institutional PhD student and postdoctoral training grant programs in the biosciences that are funded by NIH, CPRIT, and private foundations. Melissa has also been very active in the area of professional and career development for trainees, terming it “value added” to fellowship training. Prior to joining the GCC, Melissa worked at Rice University in the mechanical engineering department and at the Ken Kennedy Institute for Information Technology. She has a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Virginia at Charlottesville, and an M.S. in Human Resource Management Systems from Chapman University.
Director, Keck Center
Director, Keck Center
Administrative Coordinator
Dawn Koob joined the GCC in 2012 and has responsibilities in many aspects and daily operations of the GCC. Her contributions to the research consortia, clusters and initiatives include coordinating and implementing numerous events such as conferences, symposiums, and workshops as well as the development and design of all publications for advertising and marketing events. Dawn also assists with training grant preparation and submissions and event planning. In addition, she manages the GCC website and GCC News, maintains numerous mailing lists, and contributes to all aspects of office management.
Suzanne Tomlinson, Ph.D.
Suzanne Tomlinson, Ph.D.
Director, Research Programs and Strategic Initiatives
Dr. Suzanne Tomlinson is the Director of Research Programs for the Gulf Coast Consortia. Her primary responsibilities include direction of the 8 GCC research consortia and clusters. In addition, she directs the development of new interinstitutional research initiatives, scientific conferences, grant proposals, curriculum, and manages the John S. Dunn Foundation Collaborative Research Award Program for the BioScience Research Collaborative. She earned her Ph.D. at the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB), Galveston, TX, in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, specializing in computational drug discovery and lead optimization in the development of West Nile and dengue virus protease inhibitors. As a Postdoctoral Fellow, she developed aldose reductase inhibitors as potential colon cancer therapeutics. Her current research interests remain in the development of flavivirus antivirals.
Frequently Asked Questions
The member institutions are:
Baylor College of Medicine
Rice University, University of Houston
University of Texas Health Science Center
University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center
University of Texas Medical Branch
Institute of Biosciences & Technology-TAMHSC
The GCC is located in the BioScience Research Collaborative
6500 Main St., Suite 160
Houston, Texas 77030
in heart of the Texas Medical Center in Houston, Texas.
The GCC was formed in March of 2001 by an Operating Agreement signed by the presidents of the member institutions.
The GCC seeks funding for both research and fellowships, but does not independently endow either; we act as the functional administrators for grants once they are secured.
One of the GCC goals is to provide a vehicle for the member institutions to secure funding that no one institution would pursue alone. By working together, we are able to bring new and innovative grants to the Texas Medical Center area.
For more information, contact
Karen Ethun
713-348-4753
kethun@rice.edu
Additionally, you may write the GCC:
Gulf Coast Consortia
6100 Main Street, MS-141
Houston, TX 77251-1892
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Contact Us: (713) 348-4753
Karen Ethun: kethun@rice.edu