Research centers
Defining innovation
Our award-winning faculty members are deeply involved in numerous, cutting-edge research centers throughout Arizona State University. These interdisciplinary and collaborative centers provide exciting opportunities for educational enrichment, side-by-side research with faculty members, and learning at the forefront of the life sciences.
ASU-Banner Neurodegenerative Disease Research Center
This center is a partnership between ASU and Phoenix-based Banner Health on ASU's Tempe Campus. This effort capitalizes on Banner’s internationally recognized programs in Alzheimer’s disease research and patient care and ASU’s rapid ascension as a world-class research university. The center is recruiting innovative research teams that will pursue the causes of and treatments for neurodegenerative diseases.
Biodiversity Knowledge Integration Center
The Biodiversity Knowledge Integration Center seeks to generate comparative knowledge of life's diversity; promote the use of integrative informatics tools; and foster direct and virtual learning experiences with biodiversity data and specimens.
Center for Applied Structural Discovery
This center is developing and applying groundbreaking technologies and methodologies to accelerate the rate at which we discover the structure and associated function of biomolecules. Researchers hope to develop technical innovations that improve human health and provide clean energy and food.
Center for Bio-mediated and Bio-inspired Geotechnics
CBBG applies biogeotechnical techniques to create sustainable, resilient, and environmentally compatible solutions for construction, repair, and rehabilitation of civil infrastructure systems, including:transportation systems; commercial, institutional, and industrial development; residential development; and resource recovery systems.
Center for Biodiversity Outcomes
This center tackles complex biodiversity and sustainability challenges by drawing on Arizona State University’s strengths in natural and social sciences. As a collaboration between ASU’s School of Life Sciences and The Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability, the center is working to meet today’s biodiversity challenges.
Center for Bioenergy and Photosynthesis
This center studies biological and biologically-based artificial systems to help address society's energy needs in a sustainable manner. Its emphasis is on solar energy conversion and bio-inspired energy transformation.
Center for Biology and Society
The Center for Biology and Society promotes research and education related to study of the life sciences and their interconnections with society. The center reaches across traditional academic boundaries and stimulates intellectual growth through innovative collaborations.
Center for Evolution and Medicine
This center is a university-wide Presidential initiative whose mission is to improve human health by establishing evolutionary biology as an essential, basic science for medicine, worldwide. Its priorities include cancer, preventing antibiotic resistance, the microbiome, evolutionary genetics, and diseases of modern environments.
Center for Fundamental and Applied Microbiomics
The center's mission is to develop a thorough understanding of the functional and structural basis of complex systems of microbes, and their relevance for human, animal and plant biology, the environment, and man-made systems.
Center for Immunotherapy, Vaccines and Virotherapy
This center's mission is to invent, develop, and translate novel therapeutic strategies against cancer and infectious diseases. The center is crafting next-generation treatment strategies in the areas of vaccines, engineered viruses and bacteria, and immune-based therapeutics.
Center for Innovations in Medicine
Researchers at the Center for Innovations in Medicine aim to transform our understanding of disease. The center is particularly focused on the improvement of medical diagnostics and treatment and the prevention of disease.
Center for Membrane Proteins in Infectious Diseases
This center is focused on determining the structures of viral, bacterial and human membrane proteins involved in pathogenesis. The team is working to develop new technologies for high throughput membrane protein expression, isolation, functional characterization, crystallization and structure determination.
Center for Social Dynamics and Complexity
This center studies the commonalities of sociality found in phenomena such as gene networks, slime molds, ant colonies, corporations and cities. It uses innovative concepts of complex adaptive systems science to generate new insights about the emergence, evolution, and function of social systems and their interactions with the biophysical environment.
Global Drylands Center
ASU’s Global Drylands Center engages key actors of dryland stewardship to develop use-inspired research, training and solution for arid ecosystems around the world. This center's vision is to become the world leader in discovery and education, ensuring a sustainable future for drylands.
Lincoln Center for Applied Ethics
The Lincoln Center for Applied Ethics advances teaching, research and community engagement efforts that explore how best to live together as a human community, so that we all may achieve purposeful, productive and prosperous lives.
Mechanisms of Evolution
While much of evolutionary biology is focused on why certain phenotypes evolve, the goal of this center is to understand the mechanisms of evolutionary change. This center is focused on the integration of population-genetic theory with empirical work from molecular and cell biology, biophysics, and biochemistry. This center is adding faculty positions, research scientists, postdoctoral fellows and graduate students. Inquiries are welcome.
Neurodegenerative Disease Research Center
ASU partnered with Phoenix-based Banner Health, one of the nation’s largest nonprofit health systems, to launch the Arizona State University-Banner Neurodegenerative Disease Research Center. This center researches causes of and treatments for neurodegenerative diseases.
Swette Center for Environmental Biotechnology
The Swette Center for Environmental Biotechnology studies microbial communities that can provide beneficial services to society, such as generating renewable energy and making polluted water and soil clean. Microbial services may also make humans healthier – directly and indirectly.
Urban Climate Research Center
The Urban Climate Research Center uses a collaborative social and physical science framework to address critical issues regarding the urban atmospheric environment. This center is working to advance our fundamental knowledge of processes in the urban atmosphere, as well as related interactions among urban systems.
Virginia G. Piper Center for Personalized Diagnostics
The center is working to drive the discovery and development of biomarkers used for early detection of diseases. By developing better disease detection and earlier treatment options, its members are striving to decrease mortality caused by a variety of diseases.