eRoundup for 07/31/09

The increasing breadth, complexity, and interdisciplinary nature of modern research has necessitated a formal review of the NIH peer review system. In March 2008, the NIH announced the end of a year-long diagnostic phase and release of the final report. The report identified the most significant challenges and proposed recommendations that would enhance the peer review system. This site, http://enhancing-peer-review.nih.gov/ explains the new criteria and scoring system and offers templates to write the reviews depending on the mechanism of the application.

Dr. John Banja of ACTSI's Ethics, Regulatory Knowledge, & Support program and Emory's Center for Ethics was interviewed live on CNN International on July 27. He spoke about a new trend in India they call "Wal-Mart Medicine" which requires surgeons to do twenty or more surgeries per day.

Listen to Sound Science as Rafi Ahmed, PhD, director of the Emory Vaccine Center and a GRA Eminent Scholar, discusses his research with a new method of rapidly producing highly targeted monoclonal antibodies to stave off the H1N1 (swine flu) virus - as well as other infectious diseases. Read and listen... 

Dr. Debra Houry, director of the Emory Center for Injury Control was featured in the article Biting Dogs Pose Serious Threat to Children in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. 

eCOI, a new electronic system for reporting external activities and financial interests, has been developed by Emory's Office of Research Administration and the Office of Information Technology, Research and Health Sciences IT division. The eCOI system will enable electronic reporting of compensated external activities ,(consulting agreements, scientific advisory boards, expert witness services, etc.) and financial interests related to research. Read More...

Dr. Vin Tangpricha, Emory School of Medicine assistant professor and associate director of Emory's Osteoporosis Clinic, was featured in the article Low Vitamin D Level Not Good for Heart and Dr. Rafi Ahmed, director of the Emory Vaccine Center, and a professor of microbiology and immunology at the Emory School of Medicine was featured in the article Genetic Trigger for Disease-Fighting Antibodies in The Times of India.

Emory University's HIV Clinical Trials Unit has been selected to join the NIH-sponsored HIV Prevention Trials Network (HPTN), a worldwide collaborative clinical trials group that develops and tests non-vaccine interventions to prevent HIV transmission. ACTSI investigator Carlos del Rio, chair of the Hubert Department of Global Health in the Rollins School of Public Health, is principal investigator at Emory for the HPTN trials. Emory researchers will receive a grant of $4.8 million over three years for participation. The Emory HIV Clinical Trials Unit soon will begin recruiting patients for its first two clinical studies in the HPTN. The HPTN focuses on four research areas for HIV prevention: antiretroviral therapies, behavioral interventions, STD control, and substance abuse. Through its new membership in the worldwide HIV Prevention Trials Network (HPTN), Emory physician/researchers in the Center for AIDS Research and the ACTSI-funded Emory Vaccine Center will add a new arm of potentially lifesaving research to their wide-ranging efforts to prevent and treat HIV and AIDS. Read more. . .

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.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced the availability of $200 million to support grants, loans, loan repayment, and scholarships to expand the training of health care professionals.  The funds are expected to train approximately 8,000 students and credentialed health professionals by the end of fiscal year 2010 and are part of the $500 million allotted to HHS' Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), to address workforce shortages under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). Read More...

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.

Yesterday, the Center for Science Education's Summer Undergraduate Research Program at Emory (SURE) fellows presented their posters. SURE allows undergraduate students to conduct supervised research with a faculty mentor. Students receive training in the research methods applicable to their research plan, analyze their data, and create written and oral presentations of their results. At the end of the summer, each participant takes part in a formal research symposium. Poster titles and authors for this year's projects can be found here. ACTSI supported Caitlin Barbarita, Christopher Caughman, Lindsey Coleman, Meghan McMahon, and Ryan McCarty in the 2009 SURE program.

The GA Tech/Emory Department of Biomedical Engineering is looking for projects, ideas, problems, and opportunities from any member of the medical/research community for Senior Design Project I and II (BMED 4600 & 4601). The Senior Design Project course uses biomedical engineering and development, FDA regulations and ISO standards, business and management processes, and clinical projects to complete submitted projects and create products. The students start with a problem statement and during the course of an academic year GA Tech's director of design instruction, Franklin Bost, MBA, IDSA, guides the students through the process. Industry advisors and non-profits from around the U.S. suggest global health, medical device, basic science, and clinical projects. The course is two semesters, with project teams beginning each fall, spring, and summer. Students work in teams of four on clinical or research relevant projects with medical, clinical, or PhD project advisors. The course produces BME industry-ready engineers, complete with work skills and technical, business, and clinical literacy. Bost invites anyone with a project idea to contact him. Note: if you would like to be an advisor but have several ideas (or no specific ideas), a team can meet with you to formulate a project idea through clinical observation and idea discussion. Please click here for more information about the courses and here for an idea submission form. Send all forms and questions to L. Franklin Bost, MBA, IDSA. 

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.