This training grant produces physician and post-doctoral investigators in the fields of sleep, its physiology and epidemiology to address problems that substantially effect the general health of our society. There are significant needs and opportunities for scientific research and discovery. Risk and disease detection/management efforts are poorly developed, and the basic science of sleep medicine (sleep physiology and circadian rhythm) has major gaps in functional understanding of biology, neural networks, and brain physiology in order to inform future treatments and prevention efforts. One barrier is a paucity of investigators in basic- and patient-oriented research. The program is managed by Kingman P. Strohl, who heads the Center for Sleep Disorders Research at the VA Medical Center. The Center for Sleep Disorders Research now reaches training and research programs in the School of Medicine and four other Cleveland academic medical centers. He and a steering committee (Ted Dick, PhD., Richard Martin MD, and Mark Chance PhD) approves admission to the program and monitors trainees'progress using formative trainee committee assessment and portfolio techniques. Looking forward, the added dimension is a formal Systems Biology and Bioinformatics M.S. and Ph.D. curriculum in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics. Sixteen faculty mentors are """"""""trainers"""""""", with four early career awardees faculty as """"""""junior trainers"""""""";other senior faculty members in sleep or basic science participate as members of the trainee committee. Faculty represent six departments and each has an inherent interest in sleep, circadian biology, sleep epidemiology, and/or clinical investigation. The program requests two post-graduate trainees with sufficient resources to pursue advanced training and two graduate trainees. We provide options for a Master's Degree programs in Clinical Science (the CTST Clinical Research Scholars Program) and in Systems Biology for MD post-doctoral trainees. For all trainees the essence is individualized, supervised research training;but all trainees meet to engage in didactic work encompassing sleep science and medicine, exposure to its ethical, legal, and community issues, and career development. For pre-doctoral trainees, the degree-granting department determines course work and thesis progress, with a clinician from the Sleep Medicine Training Program as one member of the Ph.D. committee. Post-doctoral trainees also have a training committee which assesses progress and mentorship. All trainees maintain a portfolio of work with self-assessments of progress that forms the basis of bi-annual assessments. There are weekly seminars and an annual retreat of the group with outside advisors and faculty. A strong interaction now occurs among Medicine, Pediatrics, Physiology and Biophysics, Neuroscience, Computer Sciences, and Biostatistics and Epidemiology. The Sleep Medicine program is now a recognized as a part of the Case Clinical Translational Science Collaborative research infrastructure.

Public Health Relevance

The goal is to address the need for researchers to better manage sleep problems and disorders, like sleep apnea and insomnia, which significantly affect public health in the United States and the world. The methods involve a structured program in which graduate students, physician-scientists, and postdoctoral PhD fellows learn to plan, conduct, and publish research in sleep, its disorders, and its relationship to human illness.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI)
Type
Institutional National Research Service Award (T32)
Project #
5T32HL007913-13
Application #
8497700
Study Section
NHLBI Institutional Training Mechanism Review Committee (NITM)
Program Officer
Tigno, Xenia
Project Start
1999-09-30
Project End
2016-06-30
Budget Start
2013-07-01
Budget End
2014-06-30
Support Year
13
Fiscal Year
2013
Total Cost
$176,438
Indirect Cost
$14,362
Name
Case Western Reserve University
Department
Internal Medicine/Medicine
Type
Schools of Medicine
DUNS #
077758407
City
Cleveland
State
OH
Country
United States
Zip Code
44106
Litvin, David G; Dick, Thomas E; Smith, Corey B et al. (2018) Lung-injury depresses glutamatergic synaptic transmission in the nucleus tractus solitarii via discrete age-dependent mechanisms in neonatal rats. Brain Behav Immun 70:398-422
Benderro, Girriso F; Gamble, Jenniffer; Schiefer, Matthew A et al. (2018) Hypoglossal nerve stimulation in a pre-clinical anesthetized rabbit model relevant to OSA. Respir Physiol Neurobiol 250:31-38
May, Anna M; Gharibeh, Tarek; Wang, Lu et al. (2018) CPAP Adherence Predictors in a Randomized Trial of Moderate-to-Severe OSA Enriched With Women and Minorities. Chest 154:567-578
Azzam, Sausan; Schlatzer, Daniela; Nethery, David et al. (2017) Proteomic profiling of the hypothalamus in two mouse models of narcolepsy. Proteomics 17:
Dhingra, Rishi R; Dutschmann, Mathias; Galán, Roberto F et al. (2017) Kölliker-Fuse nuclei regulate respiratory rhythm variability via a gain-control mechanism. Am J Physiol Regul Integr Comp Physiol 312:R172-R188
May, Anna M; Van Wagoner, David R; Mehra, Reena (2017) OSA and Cardiac Arrhythmogenesis: Mechanistic Insights. Chest 151:225-241
Salameh, Ahlam I; Hübner, Christian A; Boron, Walter F (2017) Role of Cl- -HCO3- exchanger AE3 in intracellular pH homeostasis in cultured murine hippocampal neurons, and in crosstalk to adjacent astrocytes. J Physiol 595:93-124
Gillombardo, Carl B; Darrah, Rebecca; Dick, Thomas E et al. (2017) C57BL/6J mouse apolipoprotein A2 gene is deterministic for apnea. Respir Physiol Neurobiol 235:88-94
May, Anna M; Blackwell, Terri; Stone, Katie L et al. (2016) Longitudinal relationships of periodic limb movements during sleep and incident atrial fibrillation. Sleep Med 25:78-86
Dhingra, R R; Dutschmann, M; Dick, T E (2016) Blockade of dorsolateral pontine 5HT1A receptors destabilizes the respiratory rhythm in C57BL6/J wild-type mice. Respir Physiol Neurobiol 226:110-4

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