Tulane University will fund three new multidisciplinary Research Centers of Excellence focused on personalized medicine, sex differences in medicine and emerging infectious diseases — all distinct research challenges relevant to the COVID-19 pandemic. The centers are a new effort launched by the Office of Research to mobilize investigators from different fields of study across the university to focus on specific, complex research challenges facing society. “Tulane Research Centers of Excellence will focus on convergence research, which is research driven by a specific and compelling problem that also deeply integrates investigators from different schools, backgrounds and expertise,” said Dr. Giovanni Piedimonte, vice president for research. “Given the global impact of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the first cycle of the program will fund centers that initially focus on aspects of COVID-19, but their research missions are broad enough to continue well past the pandemic.”