UNMC College of Medicine faculty received 20 grant awards representing more than $2.1 million in new funding during the month of July. Highlights included:
Heart failure-induced exercise intolerance
Harold Schultz, Ph.D., cellular & integrative physiology, has received a Collaborative Sciences Award from the American Heart Association to study the neurological basis of breathing difficulties and its impact on exercise intolerance in heart failure.
Gut microbiome and health
Amar Singh, Ph.D., biochemistry & molecular biology, has received a Seed Award from the University of Nebraska’s Food for Health Collaborative Initiative for a study of the mucosal barrier and its ability to regulate diet-induced changes in gut bacteria.
Glutamate homeostasisin induces neuron death in juvenile Batten disease
Megan Bosch, a Ph.D. student in the department of pharmacology & experimental neuroscience, has received a National Institutes of Health award from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke for her project titled “Perturbed glutamate homeostasis induces neuron death in Juvenile Batten Disease.”
Industry-sponsored grants:
The following industry-sponsored contracts and foundation grants also were received. Information on clinical trials enrolling patients at UNMC can be found here.
Mark Mailliard, M.D., internal medicine – GI, has received an award through the University of Florida – Gainesville to assist with a pragmatic randomized study of oral regiments for hepatitis C. He also is the UNMC lead on a phase IV clinical study of a combination therapy for treatment-naïve alcoholic subjects with chronic genotype 1 hepatitis C infection.
John Colombo, M.D., pediatrics – pulmonology, is the UNMC lead on a prospective observational study of cystic fibrosis patients with chronic respiratory Pseudomonas aeruginosa infection who are being treated with a study drug inhaler.
Cyrus Desouza, M.B.B.S., internal medicine – diabetes, endocrinology and metabolism, has received five separate awards for technical salary support as part of his Veteran’s Affairs Nebraska Educational Biomedical Research Association-sponsored clinical trials.
Daniel Johnson, M.D., anesthesiology, is the UNMC lead on a phase 2b/3 clinical trial that is assessing the safety and efficacy of a novel treatment for patients suffering from vasopressor-dependent septic shock.
Andrew Wahl, M.D., radiation oncology, has received support from the NRG Oncology Foundation.
Shannon Buckley, Ph.D., genetics, cell biology & anatomy, has received a LB 606 award from the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services for a study titled “Role of E3 Ubiquitin Ligase, FBX08, in Maintaining and Inducing Pluripotency.” In 2008, the Nebraska State Legislature adopted the Stem Cell Research Act (LB 606), which established a Stem Cell Research Advisory Committee to facilitate awarding of grants to Nebraska institutions or researchers for conducting stem cell research that does not use human embryonic stem cells.
Sara Bares, M.D., internal medicine – infectious diseases, has received support to implement a pharmacist-led protocol to transition HIV-infected patients from one drug to a novel combination therapy.
Kathleen Grant, M.D., internal medicine – pulmonary, has received support through the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services in the Cancer and Smoking Disease Research Grant competition for a study titled “Intensive Referral to Reduce Smoking in Probationers.”
Diego Torres-Russotto, M.D., neurological sciences, is the UNMC lead on a phase III study to assess the efficacy and safety of multiple doses of a study drug in the treatment of upper limb spasticity (altered skeletal muscle performance) in children with cerebral palsy.
Kerry Rodabaugh, M.D., obstetrics/gynecology, has received support from the NRG Oncology Foundation.
Edibaldo Silva-Lopez, M.D., Ph.D., surgery – surgical oncology, is the UNMC lead on a phase II clinical trial to evaluate the correlation between CD8+ cell density and objective response rate in patients with unresected melanoma.
Donald Coulter, M.D., pediatrics – hematology/oncology, is the UNMC lead on a phase III study led by the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia that is investigating the use of a new drug for newly diagnosed classical Hodgkin lymphoma in children and adolescents.