The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation (DDCF) announced $5.2 million in grant awards to six U.S.-based institutions. The funds will support International Clinical Research Fellowships (ICRF) aimed at promoting interest in clinical research careers among medical students by providing opportunities to gain research experience in developing countries. Students selected to participate will take a year out from medical school to conduct mentored clinical research and related coursework abroad.
Institutions receiving ICRF funding will offer three fellowships annually over four years, with the initial round beginning in summer 2013. As announced by the DDCF, the following institutions will offer Doris Duke International Clinical Research Fellowships:
Duke University School of Medicine and Duke Global Health Institute
Harvard Medical School
University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine
University of Minnesota School of Medicine
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine
Yale University School of Medicine
Applications for 2013–2014 ICRF funding are due January 15, 2013.
NIBIB and HHMI Announce TIPs Awardees
The National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB), a part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) announced Training Innovation Program supplements (TIPs) awardees. The awards are part of the joint Interfaces Initiative partnership program that was founded in 2005 to provide training support for graduate-level biomedical investigators conducting interdisciplinary research.
In the initial phase, HHMI provided 10 awards of $1 million each and, in 2008, NIBIB continued support by providing 10 additional grants worth $16 million over five years. Resources resulting from the grants will be disseminated to the broader research community. In addition to the proposed distribution plans for each of the recipient projects, HHMI and NIBIB will collaborate with each institution as part of a larger outreach effort to share the resources. As announced by the NIH:
The following TIPs awardees were selected for their innovative concepts to capitalize on successful aspects of their existing programs and to make them useful to the greater scientific training community:
Dr. El Fakhri, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston (plus Harvard Medical School, Boston Children’s Hospital, Brigham & Women’s Hospital, Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology) Project title: Interactive Web-based Training in Biomedical Imaging Physics Project overview: Development of free, web-based video lectures that provide the basics on bioimaging and serve as an online reference manual describing recent developments in the field.
Arthur Lander, University of California, Irvine (UCI) Project title: Teaching Systems Biology-A regional Workshop Project overview: Oral presentations, discussions, and small group sessions to articulate and disseminate strategies on effective Systems Biology education, including white papers, videos, and teaching materials that will be available free from the National Centers for Systems Biology at UCI.
Andrew McCulloch, University of California, San Diego Project title: Disseminating Hands-on Training Experiences in Multi-Scale Biology Project overview: Development of Web-based training materials for seven labs that will incorporate the web tools and multimedia resources and make them available via YouTube.
NIH Awards $100 Million for ACE Program
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced grant awards of $100 million over five years for the Autism Centers of Excellence (ACE) research program. Initiated in 2007, the ACE program supports research aimed at discovering the causes of, and treatments for, Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). The five NIH Institutes supporting the ACE program are: the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, the National Institute of Mental Health and the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.
The nine awards for 2012 will support research at individual centers or at research networks, which involve multiple institutions, dedicated to the study of ASD. Grants were awarded to research teams led by the following investigators:
2012 CENTER GRANTS
Susan Bookheimer, PhD (University of California, Los Angeles)
This research group will use brain imaging technology to chart brain development among individuals having genes suspected of contributing to ASD. The researchers hope to link genetic variants to distinct patterns of brain development, structure and function in ASDs. Researchers in this center also are investigating treatments that will improve social behavior and attention in infants and acquisition of language in older children with ASD.
Ami Klin, PhD (Emory University, Atlanta)
The Emory team will investigate risk and resilience in ASD, such as identifying factors associated with positive outcomes or social disability, starting in 1-month-old infants and will begin treatment in 12 month olds in randomized clinical trials. Through parallel studies in model systems, the researchers will chart brain development of neural networks involved in social interaction. This center will increase understanding of how ASD unfolds across early development.
Helen Tager-Flusberg, PhD (Boston University)
Many individuals with ASD fail to acquire spoken language, and little is known about why this is so. This research team will use brain imaging technologies in an effort to understand why these individuals do not learn to speak, with the goal of helping them to overcome this limitation. The research team will also test new approaches to help young children with ASD acquire language.
2012 NETWORK GRANTS
Connie Kasari, PhD (University of California, Los Angeles)
This network will compare two types of intensive, daily instruction for children with ASD who use only minimal verbal communication. Earlier research has shown that even after early language-skills training, about one-third of school aged children with ASD remain minimally verbal.
Researchers plan to enroll 200 children in four cities: Los Angeles, Nashville New York City, and Rochester, N.Y.
Kevin Pelphrey, PhD (Yale University, New Haven, CT)
A team of researchers from Yale, UCLA, Harvard, and the University of Washington will investigate the poorly understood nature of ASD in females. The project will study a larger sample of girls with autism than has been studied previously, and will focus on genes, brain function, and behavior throughout childhood and adolescence. The objectives are to identify causes of ASD and develop new treatments. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention <http://www.cdc.gov/NCBDDD/autism/data.html>, ASD are almost 5 times more common among boys (1 in 54) than among girls (1 in 252).
Joseph Piven, MD (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
This research group previously used brain imaging to show atypical brain development at age 6 months in infants who were later diagnosed with ASD. The group now plans to follow another group of infants at risk for ASD. In this study, they will do more frequent scans throughout infancy and until age 2, to gain a greater understanding of early brain development in children with ASD.
Abraham Reichenberg, PhD (Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York City)
Researchers in this network will embark on an ambitious attempt to understand how genetic and environmental factors influence the development of autism. The researchers will analyze detailed records and biospecimens from 4.5 million births involving 20,000 cases of ASD, from 7 countries (the United States, Australia, Denmark, Finland, Israel, Norway, and Sweden.) The analysis will span three generations and involve grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, and siblings and cousins.
Mustafa Sahin, MD, PhD (Harvard Medical School, Boston) and Darcy Krueger, MD, PhD (Cincinnati Children’s Hospital and University of Cincinnati)
This network will recruit patients with tuberous sclerosis complex, a rare genetic disease that causes tumors in the brain and other vital organs. Patients with tuberous sclerosis complex have an increased risk for developing autism. The researchers will track brain development in infants diagnosed with tuberous sclerosis complex, to gain insights into how autism develops.
Linmarie Sikich, MD (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
The researchers will test whether treatment with oxytocin nasal spray can improve social interaction and communication in children with ASD. Oxytocin is a neuropeptide (used by brain cells to communicate) and has been associated with social behaviors. The researchers plan to enroll 300 children with ASD between 3 and 17 years old from Boston, Chapel Hill and Durham, N.C.; Nashville, New York City, and Seattle.
NIH Launches the Cardiovascular Inflammation Reduction Trial
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced the launch of the Cardiovascular Inflammation Reduction Trial (CIRT), an international multi-site trial to determine whether the commonly prescribed anti-inflammatory drug methotrexate can reduce heart attacks, strokes, and deaths due to cardiovascular disease in people at high risk for them. The study is being supported by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), a part of the NIH.
CIRT site selection began in November this year, and patient recruitment will begin in March 2013. CIRT will enroll 7,000 patients at 350–400 sites across the United States and Canada over the next 2.5 years and will follow them for two to four years (average 2.5 years). Trial participants will include adults who have experienced a heart attack within the past five years and who also have type 2 diabetes or metabolic syndrome. Eligible participants who tolerate methotrexate over a five-week test period without side effects will be randomly assigned to receive 10 to 20 milligrams of the drug or placebo weekly for three to four years. Participants will also take folic acid, which is routinely given with methotrexate to prevent vitamin deficiencies.
The study will measure the number of strokes, heart attacks, and heart-related deaths among participants. Additionally, the trial will determine if low-dose methotrexate reduces all cause mortality and specific events, including incident deep vein thrombosis, pulmonary embolism, atrial fibrillation, hospitalization for chest pain or congestive heart failure, non-surgical procedures or coronary artery bypass surgery, and newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes. CIRT will also establish a blood and DNA bank to study the effect of low-dose methotrexate on a number of inflammatory biomarkers.
NIH Awards $7.8 Million for HIV Vaccine Discovery
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has awarded $7.8 million in first-year funding for basic research focused on developing novel approaches for development of a viable and effective HIV vaccine. A total of 14 grants were awarded as part of the Innovation for HIV Vaccine Discovery (IHVD) initiative, which is slated to receive up to $34.8 million over the next four years.
As announced by the NIH, the 14 IHVD grant recipient organizations include:
Altravax Inc. (Sunnyvale, CA)
Principal Investigator: Robert Whalen, DSc
Project title: Germline-Specific Immunogens for the Induction of Neutralizing Antibodies to HIV-1.
The initial award, supported by grant number 1R01AI10270601, is for $597,816 for fiscal year 2012.
Catholic University of America (Washington, DC)
Principal Investigator: Venigalla Rao, PhD
Project title: Potent Phage T4-Derived V2 Immunogens as HIV Vaccines.
The initial award, supported by grant number 1R01AI10272501, is for $413,787 for fiscal year 2012.
Dartmouth College (Hanover, NH)
Principal Investigator: Margaret Ackerman, PhD
Project title: Applying High-Performance Protein Engineering Tools to HIV Immunogen Design.
The initial award, supported by grant number 1R01AI10269101, is for $479,437 for fiscal year 2012.
Duke University (Durham, NC)
Principal Investigator: Herman Staats, PhD
Project title: Mucosal Vaccination to Protect Against HIV-1 Infection at Mucosal Sites.
The initial award, supported by grant number 1R01AI10274701, is for $492,072 for fiscal year 2012.
Harvard Medical School (Boston)
Principal Investigator: Amitinder Kaur, MD
Project title: Natural Killer T Cells as Modulators of AIDS Vaccine Efficacy.
The initial award, supported by grant number 1R01AI10269301, is for $846,896 for fiscal year 2012.
Massachusetts General Hospital (Boston)
Principal Investigator: Galit Alter, PhD
Project title: Tuning Fc-Effector Functions of HIV-Specific Antibodies.
The initial award, supported by grant number 1R01AI10266001, is for $609,875 for fiscal year 2012.
NYU Langone Medical Center (New York City)
Principal Investigator: Catarina Hioe, PhD
Project title: Contributions of Anti-V2 Antibodies in Protection Against HIV.
The initial award, supported by grant number 1R01AI10274001, is for $579,543 for fiscal year 2012.
University of California (Irvine)
Principal Investigator: Donald Forthal, MD
Project title: The Impact of Antibody and pH on Female-to-Male SIV Infection.
The initial award, supported by grant number 1R01AI10271501, is for $718,324 for fiscal year 2012.
University of Maryland (Baltimore)
Principal Investigator: Charles Pauza, PhD
Project title: Neonatal Fc-Receptor-Targeted Mucosal HIV Vaccine.
The initial award, supported by grant number 1R01AI10268001, is for $779,175 for fiscal year 2012.
University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (Newark)
Principal Investigator: Abraham Pinter, PhD
Project title: Optimizing Protective Vaccine Targets in the V1/V2 Domain of HIV-1 gp120.
The initial award, supported by grant number 1R01AI10271801, is for $566,739 for fiscal year 2012.
University of Minnesota (Minneapolis)
Principal Investigator: Ashley Haase, MD
Project title: Vaccine Design to Concentrate Protective Antibodies at the Mucosal Border.
The initial award, supported by grant number 1R01AI10262501, is for $843,856 for fiscal year 2012.
University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill)
Principal Investigator: Nikolay Dokholyan, PhD
Project title: Immunogen Design to Target Carbohydrate-Occluded Epitopes on the HIV envelope.
The initial award, supported by grant number 1R01AI10273201, is for $514,331 for fiscal year 2012.
University of Rochester (Rochester, NY)
Principal Investigator: Mark Dumont, PhD
Project title: Yeast Genetic Approach to Enhance the Immunogenicity of HIV Envelope Glycoprotein.
The initial award, supported by grant number 1R01AI10273001, is for $386,250 for fiscal year 2012.
University of Texas at El Paso
Principal Investigator: June Kan-Mitchell, PhD
Project title: Effector and Regulatory Activities of HLA-E-restricted HIV-specific CD8 T Cells.
The initial award, supported by grant number 1R01AI10266301, is for $531,600 for fiscal year 2012.
University of Pittsburgh Receives Two $1 Million Gifts for Endowed Chairs
The Pittsburgh Foundation awarded two $1 million gifts to the University of Pittsburgh to establish two endowed chairs: The Pittsburgh Foundation Endowed Chair in Innovative Cancer Research and The Pittsburgh Foundation Endowed Chair in Personalized Medicine. The gifts will support pioneering cancer research and personalized medicine.
The University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute (UPCI) has launched an effort to match the $1 million gift for the chair in cancer research through contributions from individuals. The Pittsburgh Foundation Chair in Innovative Cancer Research will support initiatives at the UPCI, including innovative translational research efforts. The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) will provide a matching $1 million gift for The Pittsburgh Foundation Chair in Personalized Medicine, which will focus on determining and developing the most effective patient-specific therapies based on an individual’s genomic profile.
AACI Announces 2012 Distinguished Scientist Award
Margaret Spitz, MD, MPH, has been awarded the Association of American Cancer Institutes (AACI) 2012 Distinguished Scientist Award. Dr. Spitz has served at Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) since 2009, where she is a professor in the Cancer Prevention and Population Sciences program in the NCI-designated Dan L. Duncan Cancer Center. She is recognized for her outstanding scientific accomplishments and for her contributions to the cancer center and cancer research communities. Prior to joining BCM, she served for 27 years at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, where she was the founding chair of the Department of Epidemiology. Her research has included a focus on the genetic susceptibility to tobacco carcinogenesis.
2012 Albert Lasker Awards Announced
The 2012 Albert Lasker Awards have been announced. Complete details of each award are available on the Lasker Foundation website at laskerfoundation.org.
Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award
This award honors scientists whose fundamental investigations have provided techniques, information, or concepts contributing to the elimination of major causes of disability and death.
Michael Sheetz (Columbia University), James Spudich (Stanford University), and Ronald Vale (University of California, San Francisco) received the 2012 Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award “for discoveries concerning the cell’s protein-folding machinery, exemplified by cage-like structures that convert newly made proteins into their biologically active forms”.
Lasker∼DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award
This award honors investigators whose contributions have improved the clinical treatment of patients.
Sir Roy Calne (Emeritus, University of Cambridge) and Thomas E. Starzl (University of Pittsburgh) were honored with the 2012 Lasker∼DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award “for the development of liver transplantation, which has restored normal life to thousands of patients with end-stage liver disease”.
Lasker∼Koshland Special Achievement Award in Medical Science
This award honors scientists whose contributions to research are of unique magnitude and have immeasurable influence on the course of science, health, or medicine, and whose professional careers have engendered within the biomedical community the deepest feelings of awe and respect.
Donald D. Brown (Carnegie Institution for Science in Baltimore) and Tom Maniatis (Columbia University) received the Lasker∼Koshland Special Achievement Award in Medical Science “for exceptional leadership and citizenship in biomedical science — exemplified by fundamental discoveries concerning the nature of genes; by selfless commitment to young scientists; and by disseminating revolutionary technologies to the scientific community”.
2012 NIH Director’s Early Independence Awards Announced
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has named fourteen junior scientists as recipients of the NIH Director’s Early Independence award. The program provides support for exceptional young scientists who have the talent, maturity and leadership skills to conduct independent biomedical or behavioral research without the intermediate step of post-doctoral training. Awardees are selected from an applicant pool of individuals who are within one year of completing their doctoral degrees or clinical residencies at the time of application. Contingent on the availability of funds, the NIH Common Fund and contributing NIH institutes plan to commit up to $25.9 million to support these projects over five years. The 2012 award recipients, as announced by the NIH, are as follows:
Alan Anticevic, PhD, Yale University, New Haven, CT
Dr. Anticevic is focused on characterizing brain circuits involved in processing certain stimuli and their interactions with neural systems. His aim is to understand how these interactions may go awry in the context of different neuropsychiatric illnesses, such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and substance abuse.
Mona Batish, PhD, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, Newark
Dr. Batish plans to develop tools for the detection of tumor causing alterations in chromosomes.
Yvonne Chen, PhD, University of California, Los Angeles
Dr. Chen’s proposed research will engineer next-generation, tumor-targeting white blood cells (T cells) to attack tumors and minimize off-target toxicity toward healthy tissues.
Adam de la Zerda, PhD, Stanford University, Stanford, CA
Dr. de la Zerda plans to develop new medical imaging technologies that can look inside a tumor and gather information on sugar molecules that are essential for cancer progression.
Brandon K. Fornwalt, MD, PhD, University of Kentucky, Lexington
Dr. Fornwalt’s research program is to address congenital heart (CHD) disease by adapting a relatively new, highly successful therapy for adult heart failure called cardiac resynchronization therapy, into a treatment option for children with CHD.
Mitchell Guttman, PhD, Broad Institute, Inc., Cambridge, MA
Dr. Guttman’s research aims to define the rules for how large non-coding RNAs control gene expression programs, providing a framework for understanding their role in human disease.
William J. Kaiser, PhD, Emory University, Atlanta
Dr. Kaiser plans to establish a research program to dissect the pathways controlling necrotic cell death.
Brad Rosenberg, MD, PhD, Rockefeller University, New York City
Dr. Rosenberg’s research will use DNA sequencing technologies and high throughput methodology to study immune responses in contexts of vaccination and autoimmune disease.
Gregory F. Sonnenberg, PhD, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
Dr. Sonnenberg’s research will investigate interactions between the mammalian immune system and intestinal commensal bacteria (which may help, and do not harm, their hosts) in the context of human health and disease.
Matthew Thomson, PhD, University of California, San Francisco
Dr. Thomson’s research is to derive mathematical models of how stems cells develop into different cell types, and use these models to understand how cells work together to form tissues.
Ziad Obermeyer, MD, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston
Dr. Obermeyer’s research project will define predictors of unexpected deaths in the United States and globally, develop and report routine surveillance data on these events, and eventually test clinical and policy solutions to prevent deaths in the future.
Gabriel D. Victora, PhD, Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, Cambridge, MA
Dr. Victora will investigate the way cells of the immune system interact to generate high-affinity antibodies that protect us from disease-causing viruses and bacteria.
Saul A. Villeda, PhD, University of California, San Francisco
Dr. Villeda’s proposal will determine how molecular immune-related changes in blood during aging impair stem cell function and cognitive processes in the old brain.
Ellen Yeh, MD, PhD, Stanford University
Dr. Yeh’s research will investigate the novel biology of a structure within certain single-cell organisms (the Apicomplexan plastid) and its role in causing disease, with the goal of developing novel therapeutics against these important pathogens that cause several diseases, including malaria.
UAMS Awarded NIH Grant to Establish a COBRE
The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) has been awarded roughly $10 million from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to support its microbiology and immunology research program. The five-year grant, awarded by the NIH’s National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), establishes a Center for Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) at the university. The UAMS COBRE will focus on understanding how various types of microbial pathogens illicit inflammatory responses in the human body.
Four young investigators, whose research is focused on examining how microbial pathogens interact with the human body to cause disease, will also be supported by the award. These junior investigators are assistant professors in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology Jason Stumhofer, PhD; J. Craig Forrest, PhD; and Karl Boehme, PhD; and Amy Scurlock, MD, associate professor of pediatrics in the UAMS College of Medicine and a researcher at the Arkansas Children’s Hospital Research Institute. They will be supported by senior investigators Mark Smeltzer, PhD, COBRE program director and professor in the UAMS Department of Microbiology and Immunology, and Richard P. Morrison, PhD, professor and chairman of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology.
Nobel Laureates Announced
The Nobel Prizes for Chemistry and Medicine or Physiology recognized advances critical to the elucidation of specific critical signaling pathways in cells and the re-programming of differentiated cell types.
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
The 2012 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded jointly to Sir John B. Gurdon, DPhil, DSc, FRS, and Shinya Yamanaka, MD, PhD, “for the discovery that mature cells can be reprogrammed to become pluripotent”. In1962, Dr. Gurdon discovered that specialization of cells is reversible and in 2006, Dr. Yamanaka discovered that mature cells can be reprogrammed to become pluripotent stem cells. These discoveries have yielded new avenues of research that may lead to new therapies, such as the preparation of new tissues and organs from pluripotent stem cells.
Dr. Gurdon earned his Doctorate from the University of Oxford in 1960. He was a postdoctoral fellow at California Institute of Technology before joining Cambridge University in 1972, where he has served as Professor of Cell Biology and as Master at the University’s Magdalene College (1995–2003). He is currently at the Gurdon Institute in Cambridge, which he founded.
Dr. Yamanaka is a senior investigator at the Gladstone Institutes in San Francisco and is the director of the Center for iPS Cell Research and Application (CiRA) in Kyoto. He is a principal investigator at the Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Sciences (iCeMS) at Kyoto University.
The Nobel Prize for Chemistry
The Nobel Prize for Chemistry was awarded jointly to Robert J. Lefkowitz, MD, and Brian K. Kobilka, MD, “for their studies of G-protein-coupled receptors.” These investigators identified and characterized proteins critical to the signaling of the beta adrenergic receptor. The cloning and characterization of these receptor signaling molecules led to the discovery of a large number of related molecules, now referred to as G-protein–coupled receptors. About a thousand genes code for members of this receptor family, transducing a variety of stimuli, including those that sense light, flavor, odor, adrenalin, and a number of small molecules.
Robert J. Lefkowitz, a member of the AFMR, is an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and professor at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina. Brian K. Kobilka is a professor at Stanford University School of Medicine in California.