eRoundup for 08/28/09

Morehouse School of Medicine's Dr. Daniel Blumenthal, director of the ACTSI's Community Engagement & Research Program, co-authored an opinion piece on healthcare in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Wednesday, August 26. Read More... (scroll down to the second article) 

Rafi Ahmed, PhD was quoted in the Atlanta Business Chronicle in the article $16M grant to help scientists study vaccines on August 21. The NIH awarded a five-year, $16 million renewal grant to researchers in the Emory Vaccine Center and their collaborators to investigate the human immune response to vaccines in its entirety. Dr. Ahmed, vaccine center director and Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar, is PI on the grant. Read more...

Carlos del Rio, MD was featured in Southern Voice in the article Positive about sex on August 21. The article promotes Atlanta's screening of the documentary Sex Positive on Saturday which benefits the Emory Vaccine Center, Positive Impact, and Action Cycling Atlanta's AIDS Vaccine 200, which raises money for HIV vaccine research.

The Georgia Cancer Coalition recently named 19 new GCC scholars to its roster, including Joel Saltz, MD, PhD, ACTSI's Biomedical Informatics Program director. Both Tahsin Kurc (biomedical engineering) and Dr. Saltz also received a recognition award at the caBIG annual meeting last month for contributions to the caGrid Knowledge Center. 

Emory researchers have secured at least $13 million in NIH stimulus support for more than 60 projects (and counting). The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), passed by Congress in February, opened up funding opportunities for new and ongoing projects. Examples of stimulus-funded projects include new treatments for epilepsy, biomarkers for Alzheimer's via magnetic resonance, mechanisms of cardiac fibrosis, and pediatric heart development, among others. Read more. Information about stimulus funds received by Emory is archived on a new university website. 

The ACTSI's Translational Technologies & Resources (TTR) program is pleased to announce a new RFA to use available funds for new technologies capital investments. One primary focus of the ACTSI is to orchestrate the advancement, selection, and funding of promising new technology. The TTR program established a Proof-of-Principle Technology Fund which, with additional support from the Georgia Research Alliance (GRA), facilitates a focused approach to identifying and investing in new, enabling technologies aligned with the ACTSI strategic goals. The application deadline is September 1. See RFA for more details.

The Georgia Tech/Emory Center (GTEC) for the Engineering of Living Tissues and the Atlanta Clinical & Translational Science Institute (ACTSI) have partnered in the establishment of an inter-institutional grant program for regenerative medicine, Planning the Future of Regenerative Medicine in Atlanta. Last year, five planning grants were awarded, three of which were renewed for a second year of funding in summer 2009, based on excellent progress towards building successful extramural proposals and interdisciplinary teams in the area of regenerative medicine. This fall 2009 call for proposal is aimed at new groups intending to pursue a multi‐disciplinary project in the area of regenerative medicine that has the potential for multi‐investigator extramural funding in a two to three year time horizon.

Awards range from $50,000 to $100,000 in direct costs for the first year with the possibility of similar level of support for the second and third years (subject to meeting the eligibility conditions for renewal). Teams consisting of members from more than one institution are strongly encouraged. Please click here for the call for proposals which includes details regarding criteria and submission procedures. Letter of Intent is due on September 1, and proposals are due on September 15.

In an effort to foster interdisciplinary collaborations and promote technology training and awareness, the Translational Technologies and Resources (TTR) program of the ACTSI is pleased to co-sponsor biomedical symposia and other educational events related to translational technologies in research. Limited funds ($5,000-$10,000 per event) are available through the TTR program for co-sponsorship of educational events that align with TTR and ACTSI goals. To apply for funds to support your upcoming biomedical symposium or educational event, please complete an application.  Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis. For more information about this educational partnering opportunity, please Deb Smith.

A new fertility preservation RFA, Fertility Preservation Research: Advancing Beyond Technology (R01) (RFA-HD-09-009), has been published by the NIH and CDC. Please click here http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/rfa-files/RFA-HD-09-009.html for details. The application is due on October 20.

The HMO Research Network is planning to respond to this announcement.  If there are any interested partners, please feel free to contact Robert L. Davis, MD, MPH, Director of Research for the Center for Health Research, Southeast, (404) 364-7197 or Robert.L.Davis@kp.org.

AHRQ invites applications to develop a prospective clinical registry of orthopedic devices, drugs, and procedures through a practice-based research collaborative and clinical and outcomes data resource (P50 grant mechanism). The goal of this registry initiative is to support the development of a sustainable data infrastructure and to conduct rigorous clinical and scientific research including comparative effectiveness and safety research.  AHRQ envisions utilizing a practice based orthopedic registry across a broad provider network as one of the potentially most effective and productive approaches to develop scientific evidence regarding the short and long term benefits and harms of implantable orthopedic devices and other related services. The registry will be a model and basis for other national device and procedure registries and will actively disseminate study results into clinical practice. The application is due on September 23. For more information please click here.

Morehouse School of Medicine will host the 14th annual HeLa Women's Health Conference on September 25, at the Louis W. Sullivan National Center for Primary Care. The conference will focus on reproductive health and cancer, including the relationship between obesity and cancer. Writer Rebecca Skloot, assistant professor of English at the University of Memphis, will be the keynote speaker. Skloot is the author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Click here for more information.

The Research Networking: Furthering Community Engagement & Comparative Effectiveness Research Goals Workshop is open to any ACTSI member who is interested in or has experience in research networking; anyone interested in furthering community engagement and comparative effectiveness research using networking and expertise discovery tools; and communications, informatics, and evaluation experts with interests in the intersections of these areas. The symposium will be held in the Natcher Building, NIH, Bethesda, MD on October 28, from 8:00 a.m. until 5:30 p.m. If you would like to present at the meeting or need more information please email Mini Kahlon. 

The Executive Vice President for Health Affairs at Emory presents the Future Makers Lecture Series featuring Darrell G. Kirch, MD president and CEO of the Association of American Medical Colleges. The lecture will be held on Thursday, October 29, in the Woodruff Health Science Center Administration Building at 5:00 p.m. Please save the date. Read more... 

The Hope Clinic offers an innovative, community based, and scientifically grounded clinical trials program to address the need for safe and effective vaccines to prevent major global infectious diseases. The site is a medical office-based ACTSI Clinical Interaction Site and provides comprehensive support for clinical investigation with its various core resources and facilities. The clinic creates a bridge between laboratory investigation and society, in which basic science is linked to community concerns. It offers a safe, respectful, volunteer-centered clinical environment for active investigation of vaccines and prevention technology that adheres to the highest ethical standards in clinical research. The Hope Clinic works closely with the Emory Center for AIDS Research and other local and national research organizations to understand immune system responses to vaccines and to help bring safe and effective vaccines into clinical practice. The Hope Clinic provides the infrastructure necessary for Emory, MSM, and Georgia Tech faculty to conduct clinical research. For more information please click here. To learn how to submit a protocol click here. Photo by Andrew West.

Current medical students at Emory University School of Medicine, Morehouse School of Medicine (MSM), and other health professional trainees pursuing doctoral degrees in public health, biomedical engineering, nursing and other fields at Emory, MSM and GA Tech can apply for short-term (3 month) stipends ($5,190 of salary support) funded by the Research Education, Training and Career Development (RETCD) program of the ACTSI. This mechanism will support medical and graduate students who are interested in a short course program focused on clinical and/or translational research under the mentorship of a successful, federally funded faculty mentor. Application for the short-term training program includes several components that should be submitted electronically by emailing TL1Applications@erooms.emory.edu. For more information please visit www.atlantactsi.org/areas/retcd/documents/TL1_three-month_program-9-30-08_FINAL.pdf.