The Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute opened its doors on September 1, 2010, welcoming new faculty, fellows, students and staff from across the U.S. and throughout the world.

The institute provides state-of-the-art facilities for molecular medicine, imaging using lasers, high-power electron beams and magnetic resonance, high-capacity data handling, and human performance analysis.

The Roanoke institute also is the hub for the world-wide hyperscanning network for interactive functional brain imaging. Connecting sites across the U.S. and throughout Europe and Asia, the network enables us to develop new insights into decision-making in healthy children and adults the effects of neuropsychiatric disorders on the decision-making process.

Research Target Areas

• Neuroscience
• Decision-making
• Social cognition
• Substance abuse
• Human development
• Cancer biology
• Infectious disease
• Cancer biology and therapeutics
• Cardiovascular function and disease
• Regenerative medicine
• Public health

Critical Platform Technologies

• Functional human brain imaging
• Optical imaging
• Electrophysiology
• Human and animal behavior
• Molecular genetics
• Informatics
• Hyperscanning
• Cryo-electron microscopy
• Ultrasound technology development

Leading Researchers, Life-Changing Research

Currently, we have twelve research teams in place at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute, each led by a principal investigator who also holds a faculty appointment at Virginia Tech. By 2014, we will recruit 12 to 14 additional research teams.

Our principal investigators—internationally recognized scientists—represent the departments of biological sciences, biomedical engineering and science, physics, and psychology at Virginia Tech. Their research teams are composed of postdoctoral fellows, graduate students, technicians and medical students from the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine, as well as undergraduate students from Virginia Tech.

These interdisciplinary research teams include investigators with expertise in biology, chemistry, computer science, economics, engineering, genetics, mathematics, physics and psychology. Working together, they seek to discover the fundamental processes of life and to solve the major health challenges facing the region, the nation, and the world.

Our research teams are working now to address topics that include addiction and substance abuse, cancer, cerebral palsy, child neglect, developmental disabilities, epilepsy, heart disease, infectious disease, mental retardation, obesity and diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, post-traumatic stress disorder, and traumatic brain injury.