Franziska B. Grieder, DVM, PhD, has been appointed as director of the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH’s) Office of Research Infrastructure Programs (ORIP) in the Division of Program Coordination, Planning, and Strategic Initiatives. Dr. Grieder’s appointment was effective Jan. 13, 2013. She served as ORIP Acting Director since July 2012, prior to which she was the director of the Division of Comparative Medicine for eight years at the former NIH National Center for Research Resources (NCRR).
Dr. Grieder earned her DVM degree from the School of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Zurich and PhD from the Department of Pathobiological Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is currently an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Pathology and Program of Neuroscience at the School of Medicine of the Uniformed Services University (USU), where she previously served on the faculty in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, and Molecular/Cell Biology and Neuroscience. During her tenure at USU, the Grieder laboratory employed murine models to explore the mechanisms of neural injury in response to viral infections.
NIH Announces Parkinson’s Disease Biomarkers Program
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced a new initiative to support the search for biomarkers in Parkinson’s disease. The Parkinson’s Disease Biomarkers Program (PDBP) is being launched by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS). The PDBP aims to facilitate research progress by bringing together and supporting investigators who have established promising candidates or have developed innovative approaches in the search for biomarkers in Parkinson’s Disease. Currently established research teams, as announced by the NIH, follow.
Nine research teams, listed below, have been funded through the program so far. Four of these projects are associated with the NINDS Udall Centers of Excellence for Parkinson’s Disease Research <http://www.ninds.nih.gov/research/parkinsonsweb/udall_centers/> (see projects marked by *).
F. Dubois Bowman, PhD (Grant NS082143)
Emory University, Atlanta*
Details at: https://pdbp.ninds.nih.gov/jsp/projects/analytic-methods-for-determining.jsp
This group will develop statistical tools to analyze data from brain imaging, genetic, molecular and clinical tests, in order to discover biomarkers which, in combination, can better predict the course of Parkinson’s disease than a single biomarker might be able to do.
Alice Chen-Plotkin, MD, PhD (Grant NS082134)
University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia*
Details at:https://pdbp.ninds.nih.gov/jsp/projects/unbiased-approaches-to-novel-biomarker.jsp
This team seeks to confirm several candidate biomarkers they have identified, and search for others by using a novel, broad-ranging approach to measure the levels of more than 400 proteins in blood.
Ted Dawson, MD, PhD (Grant NS082133)
Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore*
Details at: https://pdbp.ninds.nih.gov/jsp/projects/johns-hopkins-medicine-biomarker-discovery.jsp
This team seeks to gain a clearer picture of the early clinical features of Parkinson’s – including changes in cognition and sleep – and to correlate those changes with potential biomarkers in blood and CSF.
Dwight German, PhD, and Richard Dewey, PhD (Grant NS082148)
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas
Details at: https://pdbp.ninds.nih.gov/jsp/projects/diagnostic-and-prognostic-biomarkers.jsp
Based on evidence that immune responses play a role in Parkinson’s, the researchers will investigate whether disease progression is related to changing levels of antibodies and other proteins in blood and CSF.
Xuemei Huang, MD, PhD (Grant NS082151)
Pennsylvania State University, University Park
Details at: https://pdbp.ninds.nih.gov/jsp/projects/multimodal-mri-markers-of-nigrostriatal-pathology.jsp
This team will seek to determine whether state-of-the-art magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans can reveal subtle structural and chemical changes in the brain, including iron accumulation, during Parkinson’s.
Vladislav Petyuk, PhD (Grant NS082140)
Battelle Pacific Northwest Laboratories, Richland, Wash.
Details at: https://pdbp.ninds.nih.gov/jsp/projects/development-of-lewy-bodies-biofluid-signatures.jsp
This group will seek to identify new components of the Lewy bodies that accumulate in the brain during Parkinson’s, and then use ultra-sensitive methods to see if any of these proteins have leaked into CSF or blood.
Clemens Scherzer, MD (Grant NS082157)
Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Harvard University, Boston
Details at: https://pdbp.ninds.nih.gov/jsp/projects/biomarkers-for-early-intervention.jsp
This team will investigate whether Parkinson’s is associated with changes in the activity of non-coding, “dark matter” genes (which do not make proteins) in brain tissue, blood and CSF. The team also will integrate the PDBP with a Parkinson’s biomarkers study at the Harvard Neurodiscovery Center, which has already enrolled about 2,000 individuals.
Andrew West, PhD (Grant NS082132)
University of Alabama at Birmingham
Details at: https://pdbp.ninds.nih.gov/jsp/projects/LRRK2-and-other-novel-exosome-proteins.jsp
This team discovered that the Parkinson’s-related protein LRRK2 and many other proteins can be detected in urine, within microscopic structures called exosomes; they will investigate whether exosome-related proteins can serve as biomarkers.
Jing Zhang, MD, PhD (Grant NS082137)
University of Washington, Seattle*
Details at: https://pdbp.ninds.nih.gov/jsp/projects/large-scale-biomarker-discovery-and-validation.jsp
CSF appears to contain potential biomarkers, but blood is easier to obtain. Therefore, this group’s strategy is to conduct an expanded search for biomarkers in CSF and then search again for the strongest candidates in blood.
The PDBP has established a password protected online data sharing platform, the Data Management Resource (DMR), to support collaboration across projects. The platform was developed by the NIH Center for Information Technology and is online at <https://pdbp.ninds.nih.gov/cas/login?service=http%3A%2F%2Fpdbp.ninds.nih.gov%2Fportal%2Fj_spring_cas_security_check>.
Currently, PDBP investigators must share data through the DMR. This requirement will also become applicable to investigators funded through the NINDS Udall Centers. Investigators who are not funded through these programs will be permitted to access the data and to request and submit biological samples. Biological samples submitted through the PDBP will be banked by the NINDS Human Genetics Repository at the Coriell Institute for Medical Research, Camden, NJ. To ensure patient privacy, only data and biological samples that have been stripped of any identifying information will be contained in the DMR.
NIH Announces Funding to Support Alzheimer’s Disease Cooperative Study
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced funding to support projects of the Alzheimer’s Disease Cooperative Study (ADCS), a national consortium of academic medical centers and clinics established to collaborate on the development of diagnostic tools and therapies to treat Alzheimer’s Disease. ADCS was launched by the NIH in 1991. It is coordinated by the University of California, San Diego and is comprised of more than 70 research sites in the US and Canada. A list of the sites is available online at http://www.adcs.org/Research/ClinicalSite.aspx.
The recently announced funding for ADCS will support four clinical trials over five years that are aimed at finding new treatments for the disease. The ADCS will receive $11 million in fiscal year 2013 and up to $55 million over five years. As announced by the NIH, the four studies funded by the new award are as follow.
THE A4 TRIAL
The development of plaques made up of amyloid protein fragments is a key feature of Alzheimer’s disease. So far, no clinical trial testing anti-amyloid agents has proven successful in people with mild to moderate Alzheimer’s dementia. Because Alzheimer’s-related brain changes take place years, even decades, before symptoms appear, scientists are now aiming to test therapies earlier in the disease process. The A4 (Anti-amyloid treatment in asymptomatic Alzheimer’s disease) secondary prevention trial will test an amyloid-clearing drug in the pre-symptomatic stage of the disease, in 1,000 symptom-free older volunteers who have had positron emission tomography brain images that show abnormal levels of amyloid accumulation. Cognitive tests over three years are designed to determine if the drug is effective in maintaining cognitive health, and imaging tests will track structural and functional brain changes. The trial, which will also be supported by private sector contributions, will provide important information about the effectiveness of clearing amyloid from the brain in the early stages of the disease and inform future prevention studies. (Principal investigator: Reisa Sperling, MD, Harvard Medical School, Boston.)
EXERCISE MCI TRIAL
Although exercise is widely recommended to maintain physical function and reduce risk of a number of age-related medical conditions like cardiovascular disease and diabetes, it has not been shown in a longer-term clinical trial to improve cognition or alter the hallmarks in the brain of Alzheimer’s disease. This randomized, controlled trial seeks to find out if supervised aerobic exercise can influence cognitive decline, slow brain atrophy, or mitigate Alzheimer’s pathology in older adults with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), a condition that often leads to Alzheimer’s disease. The trial will recruit sedentary older volunteers with MCI to participate in a year-long program in which one group will do high-intensity aerobic exercise and the other stretching. Cognitive testing, cerebrospinal fluid biomarkers and magnetic resonance imaging results will provide critical data on the efficacy of aerobic exercise on improving cognition and Alzheimer’s-related pathology. (Principal investigators: Laura D. Baker, PhD, Wake Forest School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, NC and Carl Cotman, PhD, University of California, Irvine.)
PRAZOSIN FOR TREATING AGITATION TRIAL
Disruptive agitation is often a chronic problem in people with Alzheimer’s, dramatically increasing caregiver burden and patient distress, often leading to long-term care outside the home. Currently, drugs used to treat agitation are not very effective and may even cause additional harm in older people, such as increased risk of stroke or excessive sedation. The ADCS will test the use of the generic drug prazosin as a treatment for agitation that may also be well-tolerated in frail and elderly people. (Principal investigator: Elaine Peskind, MD, University of Washington Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, Seattle.)
CSF PHARMACODYNAMIC TRIAL
When testing potential new drug therapies, specifically ones that target key Alzheimer’s disease pathways, scientists use cerebrospinal fluid and blood plasma biomarkers as a way of knowing that the compound crossed the blood-brain barrier and engaged the relevant target. Additionally, these biomarkers help track the relationship between blood levels and central nervous system effects. To increase the efficacy and speed of drug development, the ADCS will employ advanced methods that sample cerebrospinal fluid and plasma levels over time. These methods will track levels of several Alzheimer’s-related proteins to help researchers better understand how a drug influences Alzheimer’s pathology and to help guide decisions on whether a drug warrants further clinical testing. (Principal investigators: Douglas R. Galasko, MD, University of California, San Diego and Martin Farlow, MD, Indiana University Alzheimer’s Disease Center, Indianapolis.)
NIH Sponsoring Three Clinical Trials to Test Influenza Treatments
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is supporting three clinical trials aimed at finding more effective treatments for influenza. The trials are enrolling volunteers with influenza at the NIH’s Clinical Center in Bethesda, MD, and at several dozen other domestic and international sites. The studies are sponsored by the NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Influenza Research Collaboration. The collaboration is a research network funded by the NIAID Division of Clinical Research (DCR) and includes researchers at 36 sites in the United States and additional sites in Argentina, Australia, Mexico and Thailand. The following trial information was announced by the NIH.
Evaluating the Use of Oseltamivir for the Treatment of Influenza in Adults (NCT01314911) Details at: http://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01314911?term=IRC004&rank=1
This study examines whether treatment with a licensed influenza drug, oseltamivir, reduces the time that infected people continue to produce virus in the upper airway.
Although oseltamivir has been approved for use in the United States since 1999, no studies have shown conclusively whether the drug significantly reduces the amount of virus produced (shed) by an infected person. Reduced shedding would likely lessen the chances of an infected person passing the virus to others. The oseltamivir trial will enroll a total of approximately 560 people at 31 locations in the United States, Argentina and Thailand.
Enrollees must be between the ages of 18 and 65 years and have confirmed influenza virus infection but not be hospitalized or suffering from any other health conditions that would put them at risk of developing influenza complications.
Comparing the Efficacy, Safety, and Tolerability of Combination Antivirals versus Oseltamivir for the treatment of Influenza in Adults at Risk for Complications (NCT01227967) Details at: http://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01227967?term=NCT01227967&rank=1
This trial tests whether a combination of three licensed flu antiviral drugs works better than oseltamivir alone in people with influenza who have chronic health conditions, such as heart or lung disease, that put them at greater risk of severe illness.
The trial comparing oral oseltamivir alone to treatment with oseltamivir plus two other licensed antiviral drugs is enrolling a total of up to 720 adults at sites in the United States, Argentina, Australia, Mexico and Thailand. In addition to having laboratory-confirmed influenza, enrollees must have at least one other characteristic that places them at higher risk of developing serious complications. Asthma and other lung disorders, heart disease, obesity, weakened immune function and being over age 65 are some of the conditions that place people at higher risk for serious disease.
Safety and Efficacy of Investigational Immune Plasma in Treating Influenza A (NCT01052480)
Details at: http://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01052480?term=NCT01052480&rank=1
Study tests whether treatment with plasma enriched with anti-influenza antibodies improves the condition of hospitalized influenza patients compared to standard antiviral treatment alone.
This trial is enrolling children as well as adults, including pregnant women, hospitalized with severe influenza. This trial aims to enroll a total of approximately 100 people at approximately 20 sites in the United States. All participants will receive standard drug treatment for influenza, and half will also receive two infusions of plasma enriched with antibodies against the virus. Antibodies are infection-fighting proteins produced by the immune system. The antibodies used in the trial are derived from blood donated by volunteers who were recently vaccinated against flu or are recovered from a recent bout of flu.
2013 Crafoord Prize Announced
Peter K. Gregersen, MD, Lars Klareskog, MD, and Robert J. Winchester, MD, have been announced as awardees of the 2013 Crafoord Prize in Polyarthritis of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (RSAS). They are recognized “for their discoveries concerning the role of different genetic factors and their interactions with environmental factors in the pathogenesis, diagnosis and clinical management of rheumatoid arthritis”.
Established in 1980 by Holger Crafoord, a Swedish industrialist, and his wife Anna-Greta Crafoord, the Crafoord Prize recognizes basic research in disciplines not represented by the Nobel Prizes, which are also awarded by the RSAS. In addition to polyarthritis, the disciplines include astronomy and mathematics, ecology, and geosciences. The prize ceremony will be held at the RSAS on May 2, with Their Majesties the King and Queen of Sweden in attendance. The monetary award of 4 million SEK (Swedish kronor) will be shared equally between awardees.
Dr. Peter K. Gregersen is a US citizen. He earned his MD from Columbia University in 1976 and is an Investigator at The Feinstein Institute for Medical Research in Manhasset, NY.
Dr. Lars Klareskog is a Swedish citizen. He earned his MD from Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden in 1974. He is a Professor at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden.
Dr. Robert J. Winchester is a US citizen. He earned his MD from Cornell University in 1963. He is a Professor at Columbia University in NY.
Marshall University School of Medicine Receives $500,000 Gift
The Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine at Marshall University received $500,000 from the Huntington Foundation Inc. to create The Huntington Foundation Inc./Frank E. Hanshaw Sr. Endowed Chair of Geriatrics. The gift is expected to be matched by “Bucks for Brains”, the West Virginia Research Trust Fund, bringing the total amount to $1 million.
The endowed chair is named for the foundation and in memory of Frank E. Hanshaw Sr., one of the original trustees of the Huntington Foundation. Mr. Hanshaw was a founder and past president of the Marshall University Foundation Inc. He also served at Marshall and within the Huntington community as the president of the Marshall University Alumni Association, the Huntington Chamber of Commerce, the Tri-State Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America, the Huntington Rotary Club and the National Wholesale Furniture Association. He was also chairman of the board of Huntington Wholesale Furniture Co. His son, Frank E. Hanshaw Jr., now serves as president of the foundation which makes grants for charitable, religious, education and scientific needs. In 1998, The Huntington Foundation made a $1 million contribution to create the Frank E. Hanshaw Sr. Geriatric Center.
BCRFA Awards $550,000 Gift to the UAB Comprehensive Cancer Center
The Breast Cancer Research Foundation of Alabama (BCRFA) has donated $550,000 to the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Comprehensive Cancer Center. This marks the largest donation from the group since its creation in 1996 and brings the organization’s cumulative total donations for research at UAB to nearly $4 million. The BCRFA makes an annual donation to UAB’s Cancer Center with the proceeds from all fundraising efforts during the previous year. Fundraising events include BCRFA events and corporate and individual donations, as well as sales of specialty breast cancer license plates (Alabama no. 86).
VCU Pauley Heart Center Receives $2.4 Million to Support 12 Research Projects
Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) Pauley Heart Center was awarded $2.4 million in grant funding from The American Heart Association (AHA) Mid-Atlantic Affiliate to support 12 research projects. Two new research projects and 10 continuing studies will receive funding from the award.
The two new grants are:
Al-Horani, Rami
Project Title: Non-Heparin, Sulfated, Readily Synthesized, Allosteric Direct Factor Xla Inhibitors as Potentially Safe Anticoagulants
Total Award Amount $82,000
Mezzaroma, Eleonora, PhD
Project Title: Role of Interleukin-1 in Radiation-Induced Cardiomyopathy
Total Award Amount: $82,000
Continuing projects supported by the award are:
Abbate, Antonio MD, PhD
Project Title: Interleukin-1 blockade in acute myocardial infarction
Total Award Amount: $297,736
Baumgarten, Clive, PhD
Project Title: Ceramide and S1P Regulate Volume-Sensitive Cl Current in Cardiac Myocytes via ROS
Total Award Amount: $154,000 (ended this fiscal year)
Cheang, Kai, PharmD, MS
Project Title: Oral Contraceptives, Insulin Resistance and Cardiovascular Risk Profile in African-American vs. Caucasian Women
Total Award Amount: $153,996
Chen, Qun, MD, PhD
Project Title: Apoptosis inducing factor (AIF) release augments myocardial injury during reperfusion
Total Award Amount: $308,000
Koka, Sai, PhD
Project Title: Role of SIRT1 in PDE-5 inhibitor induced Cardioprotection in Diabetic Mice
Total Award Amount: $82,000
Liu, Qinglian, PhD
Project Title: Structural and biochemical studies of Hsp110 molecular chaperones: implications in cardiovascular protection
Total Award Amount: $154,000
Salloum, Fadi, PhD
Project Title: H2S Signaling in Cardioprotection with Phosphodiesterase-5
Amount: $308,000
Smeltz, Ronald, PhD
Project Title: Regulation of Th17 responses to Trypanosoma cruzi
Total Award Amount: $154,000
You, Young-Jai, PhD
Project Title: Appetite Control in C .elegans
Amount: $308,000
Zhang, Zhe, PhD
Project Title: Regulation of Na+-activated K+ channel activity and the role of phosphoinositides
Total Award Amount: $308,000
Zhou, Lei, PhD
Project Title: Structure, dynamics, and function of cardiac HCN channels gated by cAMP
Total Award Amount: $154,000