eRoundup for 10/09/09

Atlanta Business Chronicle, Research funding, October 2, 2009, by Urvaksh Karkaria
The Atlanta Clinical & Translational Science Institute (ACTSI) has received nearly $1.6 million in supplemental funding from the National Center for Research Resources (NCRR) of the National Institutes of Health. ACTSI, established in 2007, is a partnership of Atlanta academic, research and health-care institutions focused on accelerating the translation of laboratory discoveries into health-care innovations for patients. The institution is part of a national NCRR clinical research consortium of 46 medical institutions focused on improving the way biomedical research is conducted, according to a statement. The ACTSI was awarded two supplemental stimulus grants from the NCRR.

Michelle Kegler, associate professor of behavioral sciences and health education in Emory University's Rollins School of Public Health, will lead a $600,000 supplement to fund community-based organizations in Atlanta and rural southwest Georgia to improve or expand health promotion to address health disparities. Kegler's work will include significant involvement with Morehouse School of Medicine investigators.

Carolyn Meltzer, chair of the Department of Radiology in Emory University School of Medicine, will lead a $1 million ACTSI supplement. These funds will help further integrate the data archiving infrastructure across the Center for Systems Imaging and at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center, and pilot a Molecular Imaging Fellowship and mentorship of interdisciplinary investigators. Meltzer's work will involve both Morehouse School of Medicine and Georgia Tech investigators. (All contents © American City Business Journals Inc. All rights reserved.)

ACTSI investigator Dr. Christian Larsen was interviewed and quoted for 11 Alive in the story DELIVERED! Dear Santa, I need a kidney on October 2. Investigator Dr. Debra Houry was quoted on Wired News in the article Data-mining medical records could predict domestic violence on September 30.

The ACTSI's Community Engagement & Research Program's (CERP) Dr. Melissa Kottke was quoted in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and on Fox 5 News for the story Atlanta program aims to stop teen dating violence on September 30. Clinical & Translational Research Program for Pediatrics' (CTRPP) Dr. Paul Spearman was interviewed and quoted on 11 Alive for the story Emory Doctor: Parents shouldn't fear H1N1 vaccine also on September 30. 

An NICHD Grand Opportunities (GO) grant has been awarded to Emory University investigators David H. Ledbetter, PhD (PI) and Christa Lese Martin, PhD (co-PI), both in the Department of Human Genetics, to establish an international database of clinical and genetic data from patients with autism and other developmental disorders. This two year, $3.4M grant includes collaborators at Columbia University, George Washington University, the University of California-Santa Cruz, the Mayo Clinic, and GeneDx. The grant will support infrastructure and software tool development to allow efficient collection of clinical and genetic data in standardized formats on 50-100,000 patients/year undergoing genetic diagnostic testing as part of their routine clinical care. It will also support development of advanced data integration and visualization tools to provide researchers and clinicians with user-friendly access to these large datasets for data mining and clinical interpretation of genetic test results.  

The Atlanta Clinical & Translational Science Institute (ACTSI) and the Emory Center for Clinical and Molecular Nutrition requests applications for a New Investigator in Clinical/Translational Nutrition Research Award program. The program will provide at least one award of $15,000 in total costs to highly meritorious proposals from new investigators who meet the guidelines outlined in the announcement. One additional $15,000 grant may be available in response to this announcement depending on the availability of funds. This program is also in support of a pending P30 NIH/NIDDK application from Emory to fund a Nutrition and Obesity Research Center (NORC). The five top ranked applications received from this request for applications (RFA) will be included in the NIH P30 grant application. Should the P30 NORC grant be funded in 2010, the top ranked applicant in response to the current announcement will receive a $50,000 pilot and feasibility award (direct costs), with the opportunity for a second year of funding ($50,000) depending on research progress. The next four highest ranked applications received for the current announcement will receive a $25,000 pilot and feasibility award (direct costs) for one year from the NORC. Apply now. 

The NIH Bench-to-Bedside program, originally established in 1999 to integrate the work of basic and clinical intramural scientists and since 2006 open to partnerships between intramural and extramural programs, is soliciting proposals for the next cycle of funding. Once again, CTSA, Alliance for Independent Academic Medical Centers (AIAMC), and NIH investigators will be able to initiate applications jointly for Bench-to-Bedside research projects. Up to $135K per year for two years is available to support these intramural/extramural partnerships in clinical research. Most awardees involve projects bringing patients to the intramural program at the NIH Clinical Center. To identify an intramural collaborator, extramural investigators can consult the NIH's database of all current intramural research. For the 2010 awards, a letter of intent must be submitted by October 22. Additional information is available on the Bench-to-Bedside program website. 

A new ARRA-funded opportunity aimed at supporting the development, expansion, or reconfiguration of infrastructures needed to facilitate collaboration between academic health centers and community-based organizations for health science research is now available. In this community research infrastructure program, NIH establishes the role of Community Research Associate (CRA), who will be a community representative and serve as a primary liaison facilitating communication and collaboration between the academic health center and the local community. Applicants must identify at least one CRA. Full announcement 

NIH funding to support the development, expansion, or reconfiguration of infrastructures needed to facilitate collaboration between academic health centers and community-based organizations for health science research. In this community research infrastructure program, NIH establishes the role of Community Research Associate (CRA), who will be a community representative and serve as a primary liaison facilitating communication and collaboration between the academic health center and the local community.  Applicants must identify at least one CRA. The NIH Funding Opportunity Announcement, Recovery Act Limited Competition: Building Sustainable Community-Linked Infrastructure to Enable Health Science Research (RC4), RFA-OD-09-010 has just been published in the NIH Guide. Click here for the full announcement. Letters of Intent are due November 12; the application deadline is December 11; and the earliest anticipated start date is July 2010. This initiative is funded under the Recovery Act. 

The Emory Center for Injury Control has created a multidisciplinary Faculty Seed Grant Program to facilitate and promote innovative, preliminary, and interdisciplinary research activities to yield future high-impact injury prevention research. The four categories of grants (One-year Pilot Grants, Grant Application Awards, Community-based, Capacity-building and Translation Research Grants, and Cooperative Grant) are designed to provide incentives and support for researchers to work collaboratively with interdisciplinary teams and community members on projects that can lead to larger grant proposals related to violence and unintentional injury prevention or that support the preparation of a larger grant proposal. The seed grants range in amounts but all reflect total costs (covering both direct and indirect costs, where applicable) for projects lasting one year or less. Application

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.

The ACTSI cordially invites you or your representative to attend a Community Engagement & Research Program (CERP) research-community workshop on asthma on Wednesday, October 21, at Emory University Rollins School of Public Health at 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. in the Rita Anne Rollins Room, 8th floor. This workshop's goal is to discuss upcoming grant opportunities in asthma. You will meet with researchers and community based organization representatives who are interested in collaborating on grant opportunities. The format of the workshop will consist of a general overview and purpose followed by various breakout work sessions (90-100 minutes) based on research interest. Please feel free to forward this information to other colleagues who may be interested. Read more... 

The second annual Bridging the Translational Divides Symposium sponsored by the Einstein-Montefiore Institute for Clinical and Translational Research and New York and Connecticut area CTSA institutions will be held on Wednesday, October 28, at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Keynote presentations by national leaders will be complemented by panel discussions and a poster session featuring a wide range of research projects by junior faculty scholars and pilot grant awardees. For more information, contact Stacey Sodlosky, Albert Einstein College of Medicine. 

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... 

NCRR at NIH presents Widening the Use of Electronic Health Records Data for Research, on Friday, October 30, from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. at the Natcher Conference Center, NIH Campus, Bethesda, MD. Electronic health records have yet to be broadly implemented, but there are large national efforts underway to address this lag in technology adoption. At the same time, adopters of health information technology are looking toward ways of improving health by secondary application of clinical data obtained during healthcare. Case studies in comparative effectiveness research, health disparities, drug safety, and public health will allow sharing of successful roadmaps, identification of challenging areas of mutual interest, and discussion of common tasks that can be addressed in the short term. For more information and to register, visit the symposium website. 

In response to the nationwide alarm of declaration by the WHO Pandemic Alert Level Phase 6, our nationwide community invites you to join the World Response Conference on Global Outbreak (WRCGO 2009) on November 12-13, at the Monte Carlo Hotel, Las Vegas, NV. The purpose is to create an Ad Hoc multi-sector Crisis Management Consortium during the event, to be studied as a model by communities worldwide. It is the first world event to invite leaders representing every sector of society including, government officials, health experts and medical professionals, emergency management experts, first responders, military, justice, law enforcement, retail, human resources, facilities representatives, information technology, media as well other experts to model a community process to help prepare, respond, and recover from a localized outbreak and broader pandemic. Please logon to http://wrcgo.eve-ex.com/ for more information. Click here for an online brochure and contact Trisha Miller, 425.996.3528 or tmiller@eve-ex.us cc trisha.miller@eve-ex.net with questions. 

The Society for Clinical Trials will hold its next annual meeting May 16-19, 2010, at the Baltimore Waterfront Marriott hotel. The society is a non-profit organization, founded in 1979, that is devoted to developing and promoting high quality clinical trials as a tool for advancing the public health. The membership is multi-disciplinary, includes clinical investigators, epidemiologists, statisticians, clinical research associates, IT professionals, and others interested in the practice of clinical trials. The meeting provides an excellent opportunity for CTSA trainees to present reports based on their training experiences. For more information about the meeting and instructions for submitting abstracts, visit the society's website. 

The new curriculum in the Emory University School of Medicine now includes a Discovery Phase that requires all third year students who have completed medical school through their clinical rotations, to engage in an approved, mentored research project for at least five continuous months beginning in the spring of 2010. There is no salary commitment on the part of mentors or projects to have these talented individuals join your team.  Click here for more information.

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.