VMRCVM
Search VMRCVM
DBSP
Roster  DBSP Departments VMRCVM


DBSP Faculty

Thomas P. Caruso

Thomas P. Caruso, MA, PhD

Director, Research Initiatives
Adjunct Professor, Pharmacology
Department of Biomedical Sciences & Pathobiology
 
e-mail: tcaruso@vt.edu

Dr. Caruso's CV: PDF
Dr. Caruso's Resume: PDF


Research Interests

Dr. Caruso is building a research and development program in comparative genomics and biomedical informatics that will integrate basic and applied research with development and commercialization.

  1. Dr. Caruso and collaborators from the VA-MD Regional College of Veterinary Medicine, the College of Engineering, and the Pamplin College of Business, have been pursuing funding for development of a standard platform (ClinGeneRIM) for clinical and biomedical information systems, and has been developing a standards-based Laboratory Animal System (LASy) for tracking clinical and biomedical information, including genomics, proteomics, and metabolomics information.
  2. Dr. Caruso has started, with the help of VT KnowledgeWorks, BioClinformatics which will fund the development and marketing of drug development information systems that result from these efforts.
  3. Dr. Caruso has built a relationship with the Cancer Biomedical Informatics Grid (caBIG) program of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Center for Bioinformatics, a large, collaborative clinical and biomedical information system project involving several companies and more than 50 NCI Cancer Centers across the country. Dr. Caruso currently participates on the Strategic Planning Strategic Level Working Group of caBIG.

In addition to the comparative genomics, pharmacogenetics and biomedical informatics research program he is developing, Dr. Caruso also heads the Nonviolent Communicationsm (NVC) Research Workgroup (http://www.cnvc.org/nvc-research.htm) and collaborates with the Department of Sociology in the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences:

  • To complete a pilot research project evaluating training in Nonviolent Communication at an elementary school in the San Diego Unified School District with funds provided by the Center for Nonviolent Communication (www.cnvc.org);
  • To pursue opportunities to evaluate NVC training in prisons in California and Oregon; and
  • To evaluate the results from a study of NVC training in a boys detention residence in Christiansburg, Virginia.

Professional Experience

Dr. Thomas P. Caruso has been Director of Research Initiatives at the VA-MD Regional College of Veterinary Medicine at Virginia Tech for more than two years, has twenty years of experience in business and research program development, project management, financial planning and analysis, information systems design and development, and business process reengineering, plus a Masters Degree in Management from MIT and a Ph.D. in pharmacology from the University of Minnesota. In his job as Director of Research Initiatives, Dr. Caruso has led initiatives to win NIH funding for biodefense, graduate and post-doctoral training programs, and animal and laboratory facilities. Also, as adjunct professor with the Department of Biomedical Sciences and Pathobiology, Dr. Caruso has been developing his own research program in clinical and biomedical informatics and comparative genomics research (see below), giving lectures in an undergraduate pharmacology course, and serving on the University Intellectual Property Committee. Before his current position, Dr. Caruso was Program Development Manager at Virginia Tech for three years, and prior to that he was Industry Program Development Manager for four years. Prior to working at Virginia Tech, Dr. Caruso was Vice President of Marketing for a small software company. Prior to this he was Project Leader, Planning and Information Systems for the Financial Systems Division of National Computer Systems for five years. Between graduating from MIT and this position with NCS, he worked for four years as a consultant to small businesses and venture capital firms, developing companies in the telecommunications, health care, and software industries.