IDeA-CTR pilot project grants announced

The Great Plains IDeA-CTR Network is has announced the awardees for its 2020 Pilot Projects Program grants.

The program is administered through a National Institutes of Health/National Institute of General Medical Sciences grant, which is a collaborative effort between nine institutions in Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota and Kansas. The effort is designed to reach medically underserved populations and transform health delivery and outcomes in the Great Plains region.

Institutions in the network include UNMC, Boys Town National Resarch Hospital, University of Kansas Medical Center, North Dakota State University, the University of North Dakota, the University of South Dakota, the University of Nebraska at Kearney, the University of Nebraska at Omaha and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

The goal of the pilot program is to provide support to the most promising and novel clinical and translational research (CTR) projects, and help investigators obtain preliminary data necessary for successful investigator-initiated extramural grants. To achieve this goal, selected scientists and health professionals are provided up to $50,000 to assist initial research efforts, for one year.

This year, the Great Plains IDeA-CTR collaborated with the Center for Heart and Vascular Research, which funded seven of the awards. A total of 18 individuals were funded by this program.

Investigators from UNMC receiving awards included:

• Michele Aizenberg, MD, professor, UNMC Department of Neurosurgery
• Timothy Baxter, MD, professor, UNMC Department of Surgery-Division of Vascular Surgery
• Kristin Dickinson, PhD, assistant professor, UNMC College of Nursing
• Diane Ehlers, PhD, assistant professor, UNMC Department of Neurological Sciences
• Douglas Franz, MD, assistant professor, UNMC Department of Internal Medicine-Division of Nephrology
• Jered Garrison, PhD, UNMC Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences
• Andrew Goldsweig, MD, assistant professor, UNMC Department of Internal Medicine-Division of Cardiovascular Medicine
• Sachin Kedar, professor, UNMC Department of Neurological Sciences
• Xiaowei Li, PhD, assistant professor, UNMC Department of Neurological Sciences
• Paras Mishra, PhD, associate professor, UNMC Department of Cellular and Integrative Physiology
• Aimin Peng, PhD, associate professor, UNMC Department of Oral Biology
• Joyce Solheim, PhD, professor, UNMC Eppley Institute for Research in Cancer and Allied Diseases
• Marian Urban MD, PhD, assistant professor, UNMC Department of Surgery-Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery
• Saraswathi Viswanathan, PhD, associate professor, UNMC Department of Internal Medicine-Division of Diabetes, Endocrinology, and Metabolism
• Matthew Zimmerman, PhD, associate professor, UNMC Department of Cellular and Integrative Physiology

Find out more about the awardees and their research.