Ming Lei, Ph.D.

Board Members

Senior Associate Vice President for Research and Graduate Education
Vice Dean of Research, School of Medicine
Professor, Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Cell Biology
West Virginia University Health Sciences Center

A seasoned scientist with years of experience overseeing federal programs that support research capacity building at academic and research institutions, Dr. Ming Lei became the Senior Associate Vice President for Research and Graduate Education for West Virginia University Health Sciences on August 1, 2023. In addition, Lei serves as vice dean of research for the WVU School of Medicine and professor in the Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Cell Biology.

Prior to WVU, Lei served as director of the Division for Research Capacity at the National Institute of General Medical Sciences since 2008. At NIGMS, Lei directed programs that supported more than 10,000 investigators and students with a budget of $510 million in 2022. He also helped shepherd institute-wide efforts and programs to increase diversity of the biomedical research workforce.

Lei earned his doctoral degree from Cornell University and taught genetics and microbiology.

Summary of Ming Lei’s Service to the IDeA Program and the IDeA Community
IDeA-Clinical and Translational Research (IDeA-CTR)
The IDeA component that builds clinical research capacity and directly address the health needs of IDeA states. It has had the most significant growth during my tenure leading the program, in part as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic that spotlighted the stiff health challenges that IDeA state populations continue to face.

o Established IDeA-CTRs as state-wide or regional networks with multiple institutions working collaboratively in advancing clinical and translational research in a state or region. IDeA-CTR is now known as IDeA-CTR Networks (CTR-N).

o Required IDeA-CTR awards to engage and support community clinics affiliated with the Practice-Based-Research-Network (PBRN) to further strengthen the networks.

• Developed the CTR-Development (CTR-D) Award to support capacity building in states and institutions with limited footprints in clinical and translational research.
• Developed the IDeA Clinical Research Resource Center (I-CRRC) that will train clinical trial coordinators in IDeA states and strengthen mutual access between national trial sponsors and IDeA institutions.
• Developed a strategic partnership that brought CTRs into the NCATS-led National Covid Cohort Collaborative (N3C). CTRs have grown to be the stars of N3C.
• Built EHR-based clinical research infrastructure through continues supplemental funding and leveraged NIH resources to provide training on Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR)-the federally preferred standard for HER-based research.

IDeA Networks of Biomedical Research of Excellence (INBRE)
The foundational piece of the IDeA Program that provides research opportunities to students in hundreds PUIs in the IDeA community. Reenergized though expanded PUI participation, broadened a nationwide effort to democratize cloud computing and across program collaborations.

o Enabled all higher education institutions in a state to join the INBRE network by removing the 6-8 institutions/INBRE cap.

o Expanded the training and research activities of an INBRE from within a single thematic area to all areas of biomedical research.

o Expanded allowable support for undergraduate student research from summer only to year-round.

o Expanded INBRE’s Bioinformatics Core to Data Science Core and allocated resources to build expertise in data science.

o Engineered a collaboration between INBRE Data Science Cores collaboration and Google to develop NIGMS Sandbox, a learning platform that brings IDeA state students and faculty investigators access to cloud computing.

Center of Biomedical Research of Excellence (CoBRE)
The center piece of the IDeA Program that develops faculty investigators to compete for independent NIH funding. Expanded, simplified, and more broadly supported.

o Expanded the scientific scope of CoBREs to enable grantee institutions developing a critical mass of competitive investigators, in 10-15 years, in a research area instead of a narrow thematic area.

o Increased the number of CoBRE phase 1 & 2 awards an institution can have from 3 to 4.

o Clearly defined the eligibility of CoBRE Research Project Leaders (RPL) Eligibility: all Early-Stage Investigators (ESIs) and New Investigators (Nis) as defined by the NIH are eligible.

o Developed strategic partnerships that allow NIH Office of Data Science Strategies (ODSS) and Office of Research for Women’s Health (ORWH) to award additional COBRE grants with their own funds.

IDeA Co-funding
A highly popular initiative that Co-funds, with all NIH ICs, meritorious applications by IDeA state investigators that fall short of those ICs’ paylines.

o Increased allowable nominations for IDeA co-funding consideration by each NIH IC from 4 R01 or R15 applications to 8 per year.

o Helped each NIH IC appoint and an IDeA-co-funding coordinator. This coordinator is posted on the IDeA Program’s website and the IC’s own website, which provides applicants a point of contact in addition to the application’s Program Officer

o Expanded IDeA Co-funding applications to NIH OD sponsored S10 shared instrumentation grants, R24 equipment grants, and C06 research construction grants.

IDeA Regional Entrepreneurship Development (I-RED)
A STTR program supports the development of educational products that promote entrepreneurship in IDeA states' academic institutions.

o Secured the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) approval to re-launch the previous IDeA STTR Hub program as I-RED to develop entrepreneurship education products and utilize these products to train academic researchers for translating research discoveries into commercial products.

o Installed the concept of product design, testing, and validation as a requirement for I-RED’s development of the education products.

o Each of the four IDeA regions is being served by one I-RED award.

Services and contributions to the IDeA community at large
o Mobilized the IDeA community to participate NIH’s $500 million RADx-Underserved Populations initiative that I helped lead. IDeA institutions received more than 20 RADx-UP awards (out of ~100 total), which contributed significantly to IDeA states’ COVID-19 response, including increasing COVID-19 testing and vaccination.

o Developed NIH’s only SARS-CoV-2 variant tracking and sequencing program to study the spread of the viral genomes and the genetic basis of the diseases. ~100,000 variant genomes were sequenced and deposited in NCBI. ~70,000 of the variant sequencing data have been linked to patient EHRs in the N3C.

o Developed a dashboard that tracks all IDeA awards in “real time” for the community as a resource for analysis, reporting, and award management.

• Developed an inventory of all IDeA-supported core facilities for the community to take advantage of their services and develop collaboration.

• Developed communication tools such as Pre-application Webinars Funding Opportunity Announcements and a Newsletter that is sent to the community every week to highlight information most relevant to IDeA investigators and students.

Foundation Board
Term Expires: December 31, 2025