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Cardiology |
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| 12 Oct 2009 | Viewed: 114 | |
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Eric Boerwinkle, Ph.D., a professor at The University of Texas
Health Science Center at Houston, has received a $26 million federal
stimulus grant to lead an effort to pinpoint genetic factors affecting
the risk of heart, lung and blood diseases. Boerwinkle leads Human
Genetics Centers at both The University of Texas School of Public
Health and the Brown Foundation Institute of Molecular Medicine for the
Prevention of Human Diseases (IMM), which are part of the UT Health
Science Center at Houston.
"This project, conducted by one of the most renowned teams in
the world, will provide the most in-depth information to date on
mapping the human genome. Gene findings for major chronic diseases such
as heart disease and stroke
have already revolutionized our approach to management and this will
accelerate that discovery process," said Roberta B. Ness, M.D., M.P.H.
, dean and M. David Low Chair in Public Health at the UT School of
Public Health.
Boerwinkle and his Health Science Center colleagues have been
awarded 47 federal stimulus grants totaling about $49 million.
Forty-four of the grants are from the National Institutes of Health
(NIH), two are from National Science Foundation and one is from the
Health Resources and Services Administration. Some grants are for one
year and others are for two.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA)
provided $8.2 billion to the NIH to help stimulate the U.S. economy
through the support and advancement of scientific research.
Peter Davies, M.D., Ph.D., executive vice president for
research at the Health Science Center, said a recent survey of the
economic impact of research grants from the NIH has shown that, in
Texas, every dollar of NIH funding generates $2.49 of economic activity
in the community that receives the award. "By this measure the recent
NIH economic stimulus grants received by Health Science Center
investigators will generate in excess of $100 million of economic
activity in our community," he said.
Boerwinkle received a NIH Grand Opportunities (GO) Grant, as
did Health Science Center faculty members Mauro Ferrari, Ph.D., and
James Hixson, Ph.D. These grants address large, specific biomedical and
biobehavioral research endeavors.
Health Science Center faculty members receiving another type
of ARRA-supported award known as a NIH Challenge Grant are Elmer
Bernstam, M.D., Kim Dunn, M.D., Ph.D., and Lenard Lichtenberger, Ph.D.
John Spudich, Ph.D., and Oleg Sineshchekov, Ph.D., are co-principal
investigators on a Challenge Grant. These grants are designed to spur
new areas of research.
Boerwinkle and his partners in the study for the National
Heart, Lung and Blood Institute will be comparing the genetic makeup of
about 40,000 individuals in order to identify genetic variants
affecting disease risk. This information could aid in disease detection
and treatment selection.
Boerwinkle's team, which includes Baylor College of Medicine's
Human Genome Sequencing Center, will be using a new research technique
called resequencing to find differences in the DNA of healthy and ill
individuals. Participants are members of five long-term population
studies.
"The project will not only enhance our understanding of the
genetic architecture of multiple conditions of public health
importance, but it will also benefit the broad scientific community by
making these sequence and clinical data available," Boerwinkle said.
'This study is the first example of using state-of-the-art laboratory
and computational methods to analyze the complete DNA sequence of a
large population-based sample of well-characterized individuals."
Ferrari's $3 million NIH GO Grant is for nanoparticle
research. Ferrari is a co-principal investigator for the collaborative
project. Ferrari is professor and chairman of the Department of
NanoMedicine and Biomedical Engineering at The University of Texas
Medical School at Houston.
"On the science side, the award recognizes the importance of
understanding how cells process nanoparticles, which is an infant
science at this time. Many important practical advances will come from
the basic science discoveries our team will make, with applications
ranging from better therapies for cancer to environmental sciences and policies," Ferrari said.
"The award is also the reaffirmation of the global leadership Houston
has in the field of nanomedicine. The team that was recognized with
this unique grant comprises investigators from the Health Science
Center, The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, Rice
University and Baylor College of Medicine," he added.
Hixson's $2.9 million NIH GO Grant is to study genes that cause susceptibility to gout.
He is a professor in the Human Genetics Center in the Division of
Epidemiology and Disease Control at the UT School of Public Health.
Hixson's project involves new technologies for medical
resequencing to identify genetic variants that influence uric acid
levels (major gout risk factor) and gout, a painful and potentially
debilitating disease that is one of the most common forms of arthritis.
In collaboration with investigators at the IMM and Johns Hopkins
University, targeted genes will be resequenced in more than 1,000
subjects from the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study cohort to
pinpoint novel DNA variants that occur in gout patients. The
identification of such variants will provide an improved understanding
of molecular mechanisms that regulate uric acid levels, and eventually
lead to novel drug targets to improve treatment of gout.
The NIH Challenge Grant selection process was highly
competitive with NIH officials receiving about 20,000 applications and
awarding about 750 projects, an NIH representative said.
Lichtenberger received a $990,000 NIH Challenge Grant to study
non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) and their side effects.
He is a professor in the Department of Integrative Biology and
Pharmacology at the UT Medical School.
Lichtenberger has found that chemically associating a
substance called phosphatidylcholine with NSAIDs like aspirin and
ibuprofen may reduce gastrointestinal bleeding and ulcers associated
with NSAID use.
Dunn received a $960,000 NIH Challenge Grant for a study
titled "A Medical Home Pilot Evaluation: A Model for Comparative
Effectiveness Research." Dunn is an assistant professor of health
informatics at The University of Texas School of Health Information
Sciences at Houston.
Bernstam received a $950,000 NIH Challenge Grant to make
clinical data more accessible to medical researchers. He is an
associate professor at both the UT School of Health Information
Sciences at Houston and UT Medical School at Houston.
"Healthcare data, unlike clinical trial data, are not
collected with a research question in mind. Thus, they may be poorly
structured and contain protected health information or identifying
phrases such as 'senator with lymphoma.'
Our unifying hypothesis is that concept level approaches can be applied
to Clinical Data Warehouses to bring meaning to vast amounts of
healthcare data while protecting subject privacy," Bernstam said.
Spudich and Sineshchekov received a $900,000 NIH Challenge
Grant to develop new tools for photocontrol of neural activity. Spudich
is the Robert A. Welch Distinguished Chair in Chemistry and director of
the Center for Membrane Biology in the Department of Biochemistry &
Molecular Biology in the UT Medical School. Sineshchekov is a research
associate professor in Spudich's laboratory.
The researchers' proposal follows from their discovery of
visual pigment-like photosensor proteins mediating phototaxis (movement
toward or away from light) in green algae in 2002. The algal
light-sensors, called channelrhodopsins, are membrane-embedded
light-gated ion channels that depolarize the algal membrane when
photoactivated, controlling the motility of the cells.
"Channelrhodopsins are extremely useful in neuroscience
research because when expressed in mammalian cells they can be used for
non-invasive l light-activation of neurons, providing an incisive new
approach to stimulate targeted neural pathways and map brain
circuitry," Spudich said.
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| News Source: medical news today |
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