National CTSA Consortium
Visit CTSACentral.org for information about the national CTSA program.
The National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences funds the CTSA program.
Pilot and Collaborative Studies Awardees
2011 Awardees
Nancy Bennett, MD, MS
Professor, Medicine and Community and Preventive Medicine
Director, Center for Community Health
Associate Vice President, University of Rochester
Comparative Effectiveness of practice-based diabetes prevention programs
The prevention of type 2 diabetes mellitus among all Americans is a critical health challenge, but is particularly pressing among low income and African American populations at higher rates than their white, higher income counterparts. The Diabetes Prevention Program is a proven, cost-effective strategy to prevent pre-diabetics from progressing to diabetes. The Healthy Living Program has been ongoing in the Rochester community since 2001 and has had over 1,700 participants in both the original program targeting African Americans and the revised program, Vida en Salud, for the Latino community.
We propose to compare the effectiveness and costs of the two programs through a randomized trial conducted at primary care practices. In addition, we will study the feasibility of collecting data regarding the behavioral/motivational mechanisms through which these programs are successful. This pilot will enable the team to design the optimal study, refine endpoints and measurement instruments, explore the feasibility of randomization in a community health center clinical setting, and collect pilot data to determine effect sizes for the development of an R21 or R01.
John Frelinger, PhD
Professor, Microbiology and Immunology
Protease activated cytokines: a novel methodology for the delivery and activation of cytokines
Cytokines play critical roles in cellular immune responses. The immunotherapy of cancers with cytokines has had some dramatic clinical successes, but side effects limit their use when delivered systemically. Local expression of cytokines in the tumor microenvironment by direct injections of cytokines or of viruses encoding cytokines has been remarkably effective at generating immune responses and can result in tumor rejection. However, because cancerous lesions are often numerous and many may not be accessible, translating these advances clinically is difficult. There is a critical need to develop ways in which the cytokine milieu of the tumor microenvironment can be altered using a systemic approach.
We are developing a novel approach that employs a fusion protein (FP) in which a cytokine is joined to its specific binding moiety; an antibody fragment (scFv) identified using phage display, separated by a protease site. The strategy is that before cleavage, the cytokine is largely inactive, but that after cleavage by a protease expressed at the tumor site, the cytokine can become available to interact with high affinity receptors on immune cells. Our long-range goal is to develop systems that can be tested in preclinical models that can ultimately be translated into patient treatment.
Matthews Jacob, PhD
Assistant Professor, Biomedical Engineering
Member, Computational Biomedical Imaging Group
Improved contrast enhanced cardiac MRI: development and validation
Myocardial first-pass perfusion and late gadolinium enhancement (LGE) schemes are key components of most clinical cardiac MRI exams. The limitations of current MRI schemes often makes it challenging to simultaneously achieve high spatio-temporal resolution, sufficient spatial coverage, and good image quality in first-pass perfusion MRI, resulting in several artifacts. Similarly, the large number of breath-holds and their long duration often makes LGE acquisitions challenging for many patients, resulting in significant motion artifacts and reduced patient throughput.
The main objective of this proposal is to validate our novel regularized reconstruction scheme and pulse sequence to significantly accelerate free-breathing MRI data in a clinical setting. The successful completion of the proposed research will provide quantitative perfusion estimates with a temporal resolution of one heartbeat and spatial resolution of 0.15x0.15x0.8 cc from the entire heart, which is a four-fold improvement over current schemes. Similarly, we expect to considerably improve the patient compliance by relaxing the breath-holding requirement and reducing the scan time in LGE MRI data.
Sherry Spinelli, PhD
Research Associate Professor, Pathology and Laboratory Medicine
Microparticle miRNAs as transcellular messengers in diabetes and vascular disease
Microparticles (MPs) are submicron-sized membrane vesicles that are released into the blood by platelets and vascular cells. MPs contain cellular information in the form of bioactive proteins, lipids and molecules that influence cells, not only in the region of their release, but are carried in the circulation to elicit broad-reaching transcellular effects. A major knowledge gap is in understanding the mechanisms that govern MP transcellular communication. Platelets contain abundant amounts of small non-protein coding microRNAs (miRNAs) that have recently been shown to be crucial regulators of cellular function and associated with a wide variety of human diseases, including type-2 diabetes and vascular diseases.
This research plan will investigate MPs derived from healthy and type-2 diabetic individuals. The hypothesis is that altered packaging of miRNAs in platelet MPs is a key element in vascular cell communication that may promote inflammation. We predict that differences in miRNA levels and types could serve as biomarkers of disease progression and lead to therapeutic strategies to modulate cellular dysregulation.
Roni Kobrosly, MPH
PhD Candidate, Community and Preventive Medicine
Examining the link between allostatic load and depressive symptoms among the elderly
Allostatic load is a developing epidemiologic concept that has been used to quantify the physiologic costs of cumulative life stress, whether psychological or physical. Although various forms of life stress have been linked with late-life depressive symptoms, the association between allostatic load and depressive symptoms has never been assessed.
This proposal entails a cross-sectional study of approximately 200 community dwelling older adults examining the complex relationship of life stress, allostatic load, and psychosocial factors with the severity of late-life depressive symptoms. One specific aim and one exploratory aim are detailed: (1) to examine the relationship between allostatic load and the severity of depressive symptoms, and, as an exploratory aim, (2) to conduct a path analysis to examine the complex causal web of biological, psychological, and social factors underlying late-life depressive symptoms.
UNYTE Pilot Collaborative Awardees
Richard Burack, MD, PhD
Director, Hematology Unit, Pathology and Laboratory Medicine
Associate Professor, Pathology and Laboratory Medicine
Regional stat tumor procurement to support studies of lymphoma
A major barrier to studying cancer and its treatment is the limited availability of human tumors. To address this problem, the NCI funds biorespositories such as the lymphoma-specific biorepository at URMC, a component of the NCI-funded SPORE in lymphoma at URMC. While tumor “banks” are common, the focus of the URMC biorepository on viable specimens is perhaps unique in the country, and has been critical to obtaining NCI-funding for projects at URMC. The availability of this resource has spurred interest in studying lymphoma, all with important technologies and/or hypotheses that could be reasonably tested given sufficient materials. However, current NCI-funded programs are using essentially all the specimens obtained at Strong Memorial Hospital/URMC.
In summary, while the success of the biorepository is generating proposals which appear competitive for extramural funding, these projects will ultimately compete for a very scarce resource, which may make none practical. Demonstrating a regional lymphoma biorepository focused on stat distribution of living lymphomas to researchers will be critical to several proposals under development for submission to the NCI and NIH.
Janet Sparks, PhD
Professor, Pathology and Laboratory Medicine
Protein kinase C activation and inhibition of VLDL triglyceride export defines a mechanism for development of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease
Obesity is associated with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) which can progress to the more serious condition of non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), a known precursor to cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma in humans. Recent studies in the Greene laboratory at the Bassett Research Institute have demonstrated that activation of a specific protein kinase C (PKC) isoform is associated with progression of hepatic triglyceride (TG) accumulation (steatosis) to NASH. The Sparks’ laboratory has focused on understanding mechanisms involved in regulated secretion of very low density lipoprotein (VLDL) which is key to hepatic TG export. Preliminary studies indicate that over-expression of atypical PKC in hepatocytes inhibits VLDL TG and apo B secretion while stimulating expression of sterol regulatory element binding protein (SREBP)-1c, a master transcription factor that regulates hepatic lipogenesis. These results suggest the hypothesis that PKC plays a significant role in lipid accumulation by the liver by enhancing lipid synthesis and blocking lipid export via VLDL.
In this proposal we examine the extent to which specific hepatic PKC isoforms regulate hepatic TG balance. Results will provide evidence to support a pharmacologic approach to reduce hepatic steatosis by blocking PKC signaling specifically in the liver thereby reducing lipogenesis and enhancing VLDL TG export.
Novel Biostatistical Epidemiological Methods Awardees
Rui Hu, PhD
Research Assistant Professor, Biostatistics and Computational Biology
Clustering Differentially Associated Genes
We plan to develop a novel gene clustering procedure based on gene differential association analysis which was explored in our preliminary study. By applying this procedure to microarray gene expression data, we can search for differentially associated gene groups such that genes belonging to the same group do not change their association structure across different phenotypes while the association structure of genes from different groups are differentiated across phenotypes. This procedure will employ a modified hierarchical clustering method which uses gene differential association as the measure of gene dissimilarity. An algorithm searching for maximal complete subgraph (maximal clique) will also be applied in this procedure.
This novel procedure has the ability to uncover biologically meaningful gene groups which contain differentially associated genes. Consequently, it can complement and enhance the existing clustering algorithms based on differentially expressed genes. It will also help us understand how the phenotypic differences of gene dependence structure can be used to cluster genes into biologically meaningful units.
Hongqi Xue, PhD
Research Assistant Professor, Biostatistics and Computational Biology
Parameter estimation for nonlinear stochastic differential equation models from noisy longitudinal data in HIV dynamic research
In AIDS research, one major area is to model the interaction between HIV virus and the immune cellular responses. It is very useful for understanding the pathogenesis of HIV infection and assessing the potency of antiviral therapies. Since the middle of 1990s, mathematical models described by ordinary differential equations (ODEs) have been widely used for HIV dynamic systems. However, being deterministic, these models have ignored the random disturbances of many biological and environmental factors and the stochastic nature of HIV epidemic process. Stochastic differential equations (SDEs) are natural extensions of the ODEs. The SDE allows us to tease out the stochastic variation of the biological process and random noises, which is useful for clinical and translational longitudinal studies.
The investigator is focusing on the following four aims: (1) To develop multidimensional nonlinear SDE models for modeling the interaction between HIV virus and the CD4+ T cells for HIV-infected patients under treatment; (2) To develop parameter identifiability methods for such models with noisy longitudinal data; (3) To develop novel parameter estimation methods with sound theoretical justifications and computational efficiency for such models; and 4) To develop novel model selection methods between SDE models and ODE models.
2010 Awardees
Supriya Mohile, MD, MS
Assistant Professor, Wilmot Cancer Center.
Research interests: evaluation of health care patterns of care, health outcomes, and quality of life related to treatment for systemic cancer in older patients.
Prostate cancer is an age-associated disease, with a median age of diagnosis of 79 years. The use of androgen deprivation therapy (ADT), the mainstay of treatment for systemic prostate cancer, is rising in older men. ADT, by depleting testosterone, leads to significant side effects such as muscle wasting, increased fatigue, and reduced physical stamina. Our primary objective is to compare the effects of two innovative, tailored, multi-component exercise intervention strategies, developed collaboratively by our cross-disciplinary research group, on the physical performance of prostate cancer patients aged 70 or over receiving ADT.
Spencer Rosero, MD
Associate Professor of Medicine in Division of Cardiology - Cardiac Electrophysiology Laboratory.
Research interests: developing translational device technology such as implantable cell-imbedded biosensors, personalized health monitoring methods for treating patients with heart failure and clinical device-based therapeutics.
URMC is well established in hereditary cardiac ion channelopathies such as Long QT Syndrome associated with sudden cardiac death. The International LQTS registry, based at URMC, is the largest of its kind worldwide with more than 1,000 families, and 25,000 individuals enrolled. The registry provides patient education, and its database includes multi-generation family pedigree data linked to genetic information, clinical phenotype, therapeutic intervention and outcomes data for each individual. The center's clinical research has been directly translated into patient care and played a pivotal role in creating current guidelines for standard of care in the field. We propose to expand our monthly hereditary arrhythmia conference to include other academic centers that are interested in formally contributing to and participating in our conferences.
Krystel Huxlin, PhD
Associate Professor, Departments of Ophthalmology, Neurobiology and Anatomy, Center for Visual Science, Brain & Cognitive Science.
Research interests: Adult Visual Plasticity and Physiological Optics
Scarring in the cornea is mediated by specialized fibroblasts called keratocytes. When these cells get stimulated as a result of injury, infection, dry eye, corneal transplantation, LASIK, etc., they change into a cell called a myofibroblast. The myofibroblast produces excess collagen and alpha smooth muscle actin. The cells and their matrix now become light reflective. This feature causes corneal haze, decreasing vision quality. We have discovered that a small molecule called ITE known to bind to a transcription factor called the aryl hydrocarbon receptor, interferes with the ability of eye fibroblasts to develop into scar-forming myofibroblasts. We have two objectives. Assess the ability of ITE to inhibit different aspects of TGF-induced myofibroblast differentiation from primary human corneal fibroblasts in culture. The second objective is to assess the ability of ITE to prevent corneal scarring in vivo using a novel preclinical mouse model.
Anne Luebke, PhD
Associate Professor Biomedical Engineering and Neurobiology & Anatomy
Research interests: to understand the role of cochlear outer hair cells in hearing and hearing loss both at the molecular and systems level
Loisa Bennetto, PhD
Associate Professor, Clinical & Social Sciences in Psychology
Research interests: neuropsychology of autism spectrum disorders
Our overall hypothesis is that physiological-based biomarkers of cochlear efferent strength will be impaired in the autism spectrum disorder (ASD) population. The specific aim of the project is to determine efferent feedback strength in children and adolescents with ASD when compared with typical controls (age, gender, and IQ matched). We will build on existing measures of MOC strength using two different otoacoustic emission-based tests with short and sustained binaural broadband suppression to obtain maximal efferent feedback strength in both ears of all participants.
Danielle de Campo, MS
Student in the Medical Scientist Training Program in Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy Research interests: neuroplasticity, neurodevelopment, and how the effects of stress alter the structure and function of the amygdala.
The amygdala is a brain region that exhibits abnormal structure and function in mood an anxiety disorders. Stress, a frequent precipitant of these disorders may directly shape amygdale structure and function by altering how neurons grow and communicate. This project examines a unique group of immature neurons that may play a vital role in maintaining amygdale structure and optimal function over the lifespan. In collaboration with scientists in Pittsburgh and Oregon, new molecular techniques will be learned to (1) characterize a population of immature neurons in the amygdale, and (2) understand how these neurons may be altered under conditions of stress. Understanding how these cells are altered by stress will help identify ways to preserve them, possibly averting the negative changes seen in depressions.
Jennifer Zarcone, PhD
Associate Professor, Department of Pediatrics
Research interests: Children with Autism
The long-term goal of this research is to develop a
clinical intervention research program for anorexia and other eating
disorders in adolescents. The short-term goal is to develop a
neurobehavioral model of set shifting and subsequently use this model to
develop a targeted intervention program.
The specific aims are: (1) to establish a
cross-disciplinary, collaborative relationship between the Department of
Brain and Cognitive Sciences, the Rochester Brain Imaging Center, and
the Department of Pediatrics in the study of the neurobehavioral
etiology of set shifting in females with RAN, (2) to define the
neurobehavioral origins of set-shifting deficits by conducting
set-shifting tasks during fMRI on female adolescents who have RAN and
compare their findings to those of age- and IQ-matched controls, and (3)
to use the data from this study and from other cross-disciplinary
collaborations in the development of an NIH proposal for an intervention
program for adolescents with RAN.
Anthony Pietropaoli, MD
Associate Professor of Medicine
Exciting new evidence indicates that the vasodilator nitric oxide (NO) can be stored, transported, and delivered in the circulation, effectively matching blood flow to metabolic need. Current theories propose that plasma nitrite is converted to NO in resistance arterioles by the catalytic activity of partially deoxygenated erythrocytes (RBCs).The circulatory consumption of nitrite results in a measurable arteriovenous (AV) nitrite concentration difference.
Hypothesis: Erythrocytes exposed in vitro to oxidative or inflammatory stress develop RBC membrane protein modifications that impair RBC nitrite and NO metabolism. We plan to conduct in vitro experiments measuring the effects of oxidative stress and inflammatory stimuli, known mediators of sepsis pathophysiology, on RBC nitrite and NO metabolism and RBC membrane proteins.
Thomas Thatcher, PhD
Research Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine.
Asthma is a chronic disease affecting nearly 30 million Americans, including 10 million children. Although major strides have been made in understanding and controlling this disease, it is sill associated with significant personal and financial costs to society. Understanding the mechanisms that lead to allergy and asthma is crucial to the development of new therapies. We hope to determine the mechanism by which AhR deficient DCs promote a Th2 bias and increased allergic airway inflammation and determine the effects of different AhR ligands on T cell programming by DCs both in vivo and in vitro.
2009 Awardees
Adi Eldar-Lissai
Adi Eldar-Lissai, is a PhD Candidate in the Health Services Research & Policy program within the department of Community and Preventive Medicine. Adi plans to study the effect of mass media on geographic variations in cancer treatment outcomes. She will conduct the study through before and after comparisons of exposure to a specific advertisement of a cancer-related drug. She aims to quantify the effect of different levels of community exposure to mass media advertising on changes in treatment patterns, measure the effect of mass media advertising on quality of care, and estimate cost and benefits associated with advertisement of innovative technology.
Natalie Cort PhD
Natalie Cort, PhD, is a Post-Doctoral Fellow in Clinical Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry. Dr. Cort aims to conduct a pilot study to examine the feasibility and acceptability of group interpersonal psychotherapy for depressed women with histories of intimate partner violence, and develop treatment guidelines for this population.
Susan Fisher PhD
Susan Fisher, PhD, is a Professor and Department Chair of the Department of Community and Preventive Medicine, and the Director of the Epidemiology doctoral program. Dr. Fisher's independent research focuses on the investigation of strategies to improve the primary prevention and early detection of cancer in the community. She has directed her efforts toward integrating these epidemiologic and biostatistical concepts into a comprehensive 'evidence-based medicine' approach to medical education. Her pilot project will aim to introduce the concept of a sustainable epidemiologic research partnership to the Rochester community, demonstrate the feasibility of establishing a multi-generational, longitudinal cohort of Rochester residents, and select an appropriate battery of measurement tools and implement a data collection system to support the reliable estimation of health indicators across the life cycle.
Jill Halterman MD, MPH
Jill Halterman, MD, MPH, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Pediatrics. Dr. Halterman's primary research interests are asthma and Improving quality of care. Her pilot project seeks to improve preventive asthma care for urban adolescents through a feasibility assessment of a new school-based asthma intervention for urban teens. She also aims to evaluate the preliminary effectiveness of that intervention on asthma morbidity, including symptom-free days, adolescent and caregiver quality of life, and urgent care utilizations.
Lisa Kakinami
Lisa Kakinami is a PhD student in the Epidemiology division of the Department of Community and Preventive Medicine. Her research interests include HIV/AIDS, with particular interest in metabolic complications due to HAART and consumer readiness for an HIV vaccine. Her pilot study will seek to compare the energy expenditure from interactive physical activity promoting technology (specifically, Nintendo’s Wii Fit) to walking and running.
Elizabeth LeCuyer PhD, RN
Elizabeth LeCuyer, PhD, RN, is an Assistant Professor in the School of Nursing. Her project, titled “Diversity in Limit-Setting: African American Mothers with Toddlers,” aims to establish the validity of the Prohibition Coding Scheme (PCS-R), an observational measure assessing maternal limit-setting strategies and links to child self-regulation. Through this pilot project, Dr. LeCuyer hopes to further advance her program of research toward development of interventions for this population.
Daniel Mruzek PhD
Daniel Mruzek, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in Pediatrics, specializing in developmental disabilities with a research interest in Autism Spectrum Disorders. Dr. Mruzek’s project aims to develop a wireless moisture alarm with manualized treatment for daytime urinary continence training of persons with Autism and other disabilities in community and home settings. He also plans to evaluate the treatment effectiveness of this intervention and its corresponding treatment program.
Ying Xian
Ying Xian is a physician trained in China and a PhD student in Health Services Research and Policy interested in quality of care and outcomes research in cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease. He is a recipient of the Predoctoral Fellowship and Young Investigator Seed Grant from the American Heart Association. He was named the AHA Founders Affiliate Bertram Scott Research Fellow for 2008-09. His pilot study with Lisa Kakinami will compare the energy expenditure between interactive Nintendo Wii Fit games and a moderate intensity aerobic exercise such as walking and running.
2008 Awardees
Jean-Phillipe Couderc PhD, MBA
Jean-Phillipe Couderc is a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine. Dr. Couderc graduated with a MBA from the University of Rochester's Simon School. The title of Dr. Couderc's Pilot project is "A Proof-of-Concept Study for Assessing the Interest of Novel ECG Technologies in the Risk Stratification of Patients with End Stage Renal Disease: Using the Hemiodialysis Session as an Arrhythmic Challenge. Dr Couderc has dedicated the past ten years to quantitative electrocardiography focusing on the development of novel techniques for the analysis of the ventricular repolarization from the surface ECG in human and in various animal models. Dr. Couderc is the author or co-author of numerous publications in computational science and engineering, numerical analysis, and computer science applied to electrophysiological signals. He is holding a SGE position at the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research for the US Food and Drug Administration. Dr. Couderc is principal investigator and a co-investigator in several federal-funded research grants. He has been invited for lectures at universities, laboratories, and industrial research centers in U.S. and Europe involving consulting experience with industry and national agencies (NIH and EPA).
Matthews Jacob, PhD
Matthews Jacob, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and a member of the Computational Biomedical Imaging Group. Dr. Jacob's Pilot project is entitled "Model-based MR Spectroscopic Imaging for Brain Cancer Treatment Planning and Prediction of Recurrence. The Computational Biomedical Imaging Group (CBIG) pursues research on the development of new algorithms for the reconstruction and post-processing of medical and biological images. Dr. Jacob's research interests include image reconstruction, image analysis and quantification in the context of a range of modalities including magnetic resonance imaging, near-infrared spectroscopic imaging and electron microscopy. He obtained his B.Tech in Electronics and Communication Engineering and M.E in signal processing from the National Institute of Technology, Calicut Kerala in 1996 and the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore in 1999 respectively. He was granted his Ph.D. degree from the Biomedical Imaging Group at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in 2003. His PhD dissertation was on parametric shape processing under the guidance of Prof. Michael Unser. He was a Beckman postdoctoral fellow at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign between 2003 and 2006.
Suzanne Karan MD
Suzanne Karan, MD, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology. Dr. Karan's Pilot project is entitled "Physical Therapy for the Airway to Treat Patients with Obstructive Sleep Apnea". Dr. Karan's research interests include Respiratory Physiology, Obstetric Anesthesia, Thoracic Anesthesia, Upper Airway Obstruction, Medical Student Education, and Medical Simulation. She was the recipient of a Research Fellowship Grant from the Foundation of Anesthesiology, Education, and Research (FAER) and was also chosen as a Diplomate by the American Board of Anesthesiology.
Walter O'Dell PhD
Walter O'Dell, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Radiation Oncology and Biomedical Engineering. Dr. O'Dell received a Pilot Studies Conference Award for a scientific conference that he is coordinating entitled "Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy: Innovations and Directions for Clinical Applications". Dr. O'Dell also operates a lab focused on clinical applications of medical imaging in Radiation Oncology that includes novel approaches for screening, treatment and follow-up of cancer patients. Novel 3D tumor detection approaches are being applied for lung, brain and breast screening. Finite element modeling and deformable image registration are being used to quantify the deformation during needle biopsy and radiation damage to healthy tissue surrounding lung tumors. MR DTI is being used in both patient and animal studies to model microscopic tumor spread for treatment planning, with the ultimate hope of minimizing harmful radiation side-effects following high dose radiation treatment.
Everett Porter MD
Everett Porter, MD, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine. Dr. Porter's Pilot project is entitled "CD40 Ligand Mediation of Lung Inflammation and Fibrosis". The project focuses on investigating novel cell to cell interactions responsible for myofibroblast activation, as well as attempting to identify novel biomarkers which can be used to monitor disease progression and response to therapy. Dr. Porter is interested in the clinical management and the pathogenesis of Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF). IPF is an incurable and invariably fatal illness, in which lung fibroblast-to-myofibroblast transformation and the pathologic development of fibroblast foci are believed to play critical roles. Myofibroblasts are believed to be the specialized cells responsible for collagen formation and the fibrotic destruction of alveolar lung units. The presence and numbers of fibroblast foci have been directly correlated with mortality in IPF. He is a previous recipient of a Kirchenstein NRSA grant investigating the role of Heat Shock Protein 70 as an anti-inflammatory agent in preventing myofibroblast activation.
2007 Awardees
Laura Calvi MD
Laura Calvi, MD is an Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Endocrinology. She was honored as a Pew Scholar in 2005. Having been raised in Italy through much of High School, Laura attended Union College and then Harvard Medical School, where she took a year out to conduct research. This experience sparked a commitment to research as a career, which extended through training in Internal Medicine and Endocrinology at Massachusetts General Hospital en route to Rochester. In addition to her Pew grant, Dr. Calvi's work has been supported by NIH K08 and K21 awards. Although to date Dr. Calvi's research has mainly used transgenic mouse models, the aim of the pilot is to define changes in the bone and bone marrow in humans that occur as a result of in vivo treatment with parathyroid hormone (PTH). Patients receiving PTH for osteoporosis will undergo prospective bone marrow sampling, with analysis of stem cell and osteoblast compartments. Collaborators include Susan Bukata, MD (Assistant Professor of Orthopaedics) and Jonathan Friedberg, MD Associate Professor of Medicine). The goal is to confirm previous findings in mouse models that PTH exerts a myeloprotective effect. If these mouse findings are found to translate to humans, there would be exciting support for the therapeutic potential of parathyroid hormone (PTH) in a variety of bone and malignant diseases, including bone marrow failure states, and iatrogenic stem cell aplasia due to chemotherapy or radiation.
Charles Duffy MD, PhD
Charles Duffy MD, PhD, is a tenured Professor of Neurology. He received an A.B. in Psychology and Social Relations from Harvard College and went on to the MD-PhD Program at John Hopkins Medical School, earning his PhD in physiology. After an internship at Hopkins in Medicine, he took his Neurology residency at the Massachusetts General Hospital. He was recruited to Rochester as an Assistant Professor in 1993, and rose through the ranks to appointment as Professor in 2003. He is widely recognized for his work on visual-spacial orientation and processing by the brain in normal aging and in Alzheimer's disease. This work is currently supported by two R01 grants, both of which are in years 6-10 of funding. His pilot project, entitled, "VEP's in Aging and Alzheimer's Disease," uses visual evoked potentials (VEPs) to predict a patient's ability to navigate independently based on linked neurophysicological and psychological measures. The information from this pilot and follow-on studies may substantially improve the quality of life for patients who suffer from Alzheimer's disease, which is becoming increasingly important in our aging population.
Anitha Krishnan MS
Anitha Krishnan is a PhD candidate in Biomedical Engineering who has completed her formal coursework. Her efforts are now concentrated on research towards her PhD thesis. Her proposal addresses a critical need for improved treatment of glioblastoma, which currently has a dismal prognosis with current chemotherapy and stereotactic radiotherapy. In particular, radiation treatment is ineffective in protecting against recurrences unless it also treats local spread. However, it lacks the precision required to treat local spread without also ablating a large amount of healthy brain tissue. Anitha seeks to develop and validate predictive models of local cell dispersion using datasets from high resolution in vivo MR diffusion tensor imaging (MR-DTI). It is hoped that such knowledge will lead to prolonged survival of patients with glioblastoma by treating tumor cells that spread out from the primary cancer site, without damaging health tissue.
Rebekah Loy MPH, PhD
Dr. Rebekah Loy is a Research Associate Professor of Neurology. Dr. Loy will be spending 3 weeks learning methodology related to epigenetic gene regulation in the laboratory of Dr. Simon D. Spivak at the Wadsworth Research Center. She will then develop techniques that will allow her to test the hypothesis that epigenetic mechanisms may contribute to psychosis and agitation in people with Alzheimer's disease, as well as responsiveness to mood stabilizer therapy.
James McGrath MD
James McGrath, PhD, is Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering. After obtaining his B.S. in mechanical engineering at Arizona State University, he obtained his PhD in Biological Engineering from the Harvard/MIT program. He was recruited to the Department of Biomedical Engineering in 2001, and became Director of the Graduate Program in Biomedical Engineering in 2004. Dr. McGrath's pilot project, which includes several collaborators [Drs. Jessica Snyder (PhD candidate in Biophysics), Philippe Fauchet (Professor of Electrical Engineering), Alan Friedman (Director of Proteomics Core) and Jeremy Taylor (Nephrology)], will investigate the potential of a novel, silicon-based membrane material (silicon nanomembranes) to provide improvements in hemodialysis that are described as "revolutionary." These membranes are four orders of magnitude thinner (only 15 nm thick) than synthetic and biopolymer membranes currently used in dialysis, which should lead to vastly improved molecular discrimination. This pilot study is the first effort of this group to apply these silicon nanomembranes to solve a specific biomedical problem. It would indeed be a dramatic example of translational science if these ultrathin membranes could be used to improve the lives of patients requiring hemodialysis.
Patricia Sime MD
Patricia J. Sime, MD is an Associate Professor of Medicine and Environmental Medicine. Born and raised in Scotland, she received her Bachelor's Degree and Medical Degree from the University of Edinburgh and the Royal College of Physicians. She then took her residency training in Medicine in Edinburgh, and a Fellowship in Pulmonary Medicine at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada, where she became interested in adding basic and translational science to her clinical career in pulmonary medicine. She was recruited to Rochester in 1999, received a K08 Award in 2001 and an R01 in 2005 on the molecular mechanisms that explain lung scarring. In this project, Dr. Sime takes advantage of her recent identification of aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) as a previously unrecognized down-regulator of cigarette smoke-mediated inflammatory disease in mice. In the pilot, she and her collaborators (Sanjay Maggirwar, PhD (Assistant Professor of Microbiology & Immunology), Thomas Gasiewicz, PhD (Chair of Environmental Medicine), Michael Larj, MD (Assistant Professor of Medicine), and Richard P. Phipps, PhD (Professor of Environmental Medicine) will attempt to translate their animal model studies to humans by investigating lung tissue, fluid and cells from smokers with and without disease. They will test the hypothesis that activation of AhR dampens human cigarette smoke-induced inflammation. If so, these new studies will identify the AhR as a novel target for future therapy of lung inflammation, and possibly smoking-induced cardiovascular disease.
Xinping Zhang PhD
Xinping Zhang, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Orthopaedics. After receiving her M.D. from Shanghai Medical University and her M.S. in Molecular Biology, Dr. Zhang came to Rochester for her PhD training, which she completed in Biochemistry. Dr. Zhang Joined the Dept. of Orthopaedics in 2000 and finished her postdoc training with Dr. Edward Schwarz in 2001. Since then she has been a faculty member in the Dept. of Orthopaedics, Center for Musculoskeletal Research. Her project also has a translational nanotechnology focus, which is one of the innovative science programs emphasized in the URMC Strategic Plan. Specifically, to treat patients with large segmental bone defects, Dr. Zhang proposes a tissue engineering strategy to fabricate a 3D cellular scaffold. Although some work on tissue engineering for the repair of bone defects has been reported, a major limitation has been the lack of a cellular osteoinductive scaffold that could fit around a bone of any size and shape. Dr. Zhang and a multidisciplinary team proposes to use 3D tissue fabrication via electrospinning as a versatile and efficient technique for the fabrication of nanofiber-based scaffolds that match the structural characteristics of extracellular matrix. Included in the team are Dr. Zhang (a bone biologist), Dr. Hong Yang (Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering, an expert in multifunction nanomaterials), Dr. Younan Xia (Professor of Chemistry, U. of Washington, an inventor and pioneer of electrospinning) and Dr. YanFang Ren, (Assistant Professor of Dentistry). Success in these studies on bone tissue engineering would hold much promise for the treatment of bone defects.
NIH Funding Acknowledgement ** Important ** All publications resulting from the utilization of CTSI resources are required to credit the CTSI grant by including the NIH FUNDING ACKNOWLEDGEMENT and must comply with the NIH Public Access Policy.
