The second UNMC Department of Internal Medicine Scientist Development Award was recently given to Bryant England, MD, rheumatology fellow, for his proposal titled “Enhancing the Identification of Rheumatoid Arthritis Associated Lung Disease.”
As part of the award, Dr. England will receive support for one year and will dedicate 75 percent of his time to research, career development and other scholarly activities. Part of those activities will include PhD course work as part of his participation in the UNMC Mentored Scholar Program. Dr. England is the first non-faculty participant to be accepted into the program.
In his proposal, Dr. England said his specific aims are to investigate the potential of anti-MAA antibody (an antibody targeting a novel protein adduct generated during oxidative stress), amongst other novel serum biomarkers, to discriminate patients with rheumatoid arthritis-interstitial lung disease (RA-ILD) from RA without ILD and other connective tissue disease ILD. Also, he will examine lung tissues from RA-ILD patients for the co-localization of MAA-modified proteins with citrullinated antigens and immune cells, while investigating paired sputum and serum for the enrichment of anti-MAA antibody in the airway in RA-ILD.
Ted Mikuls, MD, MSPH, professor, Division of Rheumatology and Immunology, and Internal Medicine vice chair for research, serves as Dr. England’s mentor for this grant. Dr. Mikuls has been PI for multiple federally-funded grants, has been successful in developing and maintaining national biobank programs and has over 14 years of clinical/translational research experience.
The Department of Internal Medicine accepted applications for its Scientist Development Award in November. The award is designed to support promising Department of Internal Medicine faculty candidates making the transition from fellowship training into an initial academic appointment at UNMC. Dr. England will be joining the UNMC faculty as an Assistant Professor of Rheumatology in July of 2017. The grant provides one year of support for a mentored research project.
Debra Romberger, MD, chair, Department of Internal Medicine said, “We established this award two years ago with the goal of growing the next generation of research leaders in the Department of Internal Medicine. We’re excited to have Dr. England as a recipient of the award this year and we’re confident that he will help us move closer to this goal as one of our promising junior faculty.”