The following 19 grants representing more than $1.5 million in new funding were awarded to UNMC College of Medicine faculty during March.
Matthew Van Hook, ophthalmology & visual sciences, has received a National Institutes of Health F32 Fellowship Award for $160,000 from the National Eye Institute. He will transition the work from his Fight for Sight funded project into his new fellowship award.
Howard Fox, M.D., Ph.D., pharmacology & experimental neurosciences, has received a Michael J. Fox Foundation award for $150,000 for his work in Parkinson’s disease (PD). Dr. Fox’s project will clarify the role of PD genes and that of mitochondria in the disease process using a preclinical mouse model. It is hoped that characterization of these models will further advance their use as models for pre-clinical PD therapeutics.
Industry-sponsored grants
Information on clinical trials enrolling patients at UNMC can be found here.
Diana Florescu, M.D., internal medicine – infectious diseases, is the UNMC lead on a clinical trial to evaluate the effectiveness of a drug to prevent the infection of kidney transplant patients with cytomegalovirus from a sero-positive donor kidney.
Brian Lowes, M.D., Ph.D., internal medicine – cardiology, is the UNMC lead on a clinical trial to evaluate the effectiveness, safety, and tolerability of an intravenously infused drug when used along with standard therapy in acute heart failure patients.
Quan Dong Nguyen, M.D., ophthalmology & visual sciences, is the UNMC lead on a clinical trial to study the use of a humanized antibody for the treatment of non-infectious uveitis.
Katherine Jones, Ph.D., School of Allied Health Professions – Physical Therapy, has received a Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services award to implement a program for patient safety in small rural hospitals. This continues Dr. Jones’ work in developing evidence-based practices to reduce medication errors by informing the organizational infrastructure necessary to implement voluntary error reporting.
Matt Longo, M.D., surgery – general surgery, is the UNMC lead on a clinical trial to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of a new type of stent in the treatment of aortoiliac or iliac aneurysms.
Jose Americo Fernandes Filho, M.D., neurological sciences, is the UNMC lead on a National Institutes of Health funded, multi-center, clinical trial awarded to the University of Kansas Medical Center. This clinical trial will examine whether the neuroprotective effects of the drug rasagiline seen in Parkinson’s disease also will have a disease modifying effect in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
Vikas Gulati, M.D., ophthalmology & visual sciences, has received a Glaucoma Research Foundation award to study the effect of certain injected ophthalmic drugs on the flow of fluid into and out of the eye and their consequences on eye pressure. Dr. Gulati hopes this work will help inform the choices of ophthalmic drugs for use in patients with glaucoma.
Peter (Jim) Murphy, M.D., pediatrics – pulmonary, is the UNMC lead for two interventional, clinical trials for combination drug regimes in the treatment of patients with cystic fibrosis.
Peter Coccia, M.D., pediatrics – hematology/oncology, is the UNMC lead for two clinical trials to study the effectiveness of a combination of a humanized antibody and chemotherapeutic drugs in the treatment of children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), lymphoblastic leukemia (LL), and acute myelogenous Leukemia (AML)
Diego Torres-Russotto, M.D., neurological sciences, is the UNMC lead for a National Institutes of Health funded, multi-center, clinical trial awarded to Massachusetts General Hospital. This clinical trial will examine the effectiveness of a dietary creatine regimen to slow the functional decline of patients with Huntington’s disease.
Timothy Greiner, M.D., pathology & microbiology, has received a contract for a National Institutes of Health funded project studying Burkitt’s lymphoma.
Robert Boissy, Ph.D., internal medicine – administration, has received a contract for his expertise in the application of bioinformatics in complex modeling.
Ted Mikuls, M.D., internal medicine – rheumatology, has received a Rheumatology Research Foundation Preceptorship Award to mentor rheumatology fellows exploring research.
Rana Zabad, M.D., neurological sciences, is the UNMC lead for an observation study to determine the effectiveness of an immunomodulatory study drug on the treatment of multiple sclerosis.
James Talmadge, Ph.D., pathology & microbiology, has received a supplemental award from the National Strategic Research Institute for his current project on the development of vaccine adjuvants.