A permanent Scientific Director for DIR, Dr. Anna Maria Napoles, PhD, MPH, was hired in November 2017. Dr. Napoles possesses almost 30 years of experience conducting health disparities research and managing research teams. Under her direction, DIR is building infrastructure and resources to expand its nascent program. In addition to the Stadtman tenure-track investigator hired in 2013, Dr. Kelvin Choi, DIR recently hired two more Stadtman tenure-track investigators. Dr. Shirene El-Toukhy was hired in July 2018 and Dr. Faustine Williams was hired in September 2018. Dr. El-Toukhy is a health communications expert who is interested in the application of mobile health applications to deliver behavioral interventions to reduce health disparities. Dr. Williams has expertise in systems modeling, spatial analysis, and community-based participatory research and is interested in reducing cancer health disparities among African Americans. The SD assisted Drs. El-Toukhy and Williams in submitting applications to the NIH Distinguished Scholars Program (DSP), which provided research funding and mentoring for five years to investigators who are dedicated to promoting diversity. Through a competitive process, Dr. El-Toukhy and Williams were both selected for the inaugural cohort of the DSP. Regarding infrastructure development, since NIMHD DIR does not have its own Board of Scientific Counselors (BSC), the SD arranged for the NHLBI DIR to provide the BSC review for Dr. Choi. He will be undergoing his final (BSC) review in April 2019, prior to tenure consideration. The SD terminated the Inter-Agency Agreement (IAA) with NCI to provide protocol navigation services and initiated a new arrangement whereby these services are now provided through centralized Clinical Center resources at no cost. Alice Delaney, PhD, is our new protocol navigation specialist. Furthermore, because NIMHD DIR does not have its own Scientific Review committee, the SD arranged for Scientific Review and Human Subjects review of its protocols to be conducted by the NHGRI IRB (now transitioned to the joint NHLBI-NHGRI IRB called Gen Med #1). Additionally, DIR continued to support five Adjunct Investigators with primary appointments in other NIH Institutes (listed above under Collaborators). These investigators receive supplementary funding from DIR to pay for a post-doctoral fellow and lab supplies. DIR awarded one of these Adjunct Investigators, Dr. Chandra Jackson, a two-year, $300,000 Bench-to-Bedside grant entitled, Biomarker Identification for Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus Using Metabolomics.
The aims of this project are to identify novel metabolite signatures for T2D in two racial groups, African Americans and Whites, and the association of these metabolites with plasma biomarkes of insulin sensitivity and inflammation, and dietary and lifestyle risk factors. During FY18, DIR hosted five post-baccalaureate fellows (Mary Andrews, Launick Saint-Fort, Michael Ramsey, Aaron Broun, and Cristian Escalera), one Medical Research Scholars Program (MRSP) trainee (Jennifer Bailey), one post-doctoral fellow (Julia Chen), and six summer interns (Abel Amare, Katheen Dang, Danielle Duarte, Leah Orozco, Maria Ortiz, and Alyssa Watson. All 13 trainees conducted health disparities research and most were from under-represented groups in research. Furthermore, with DIR funding, our Adjunct faculty hosted three post-baccalaureate fellows (Tsegaselassie Wokalemahu, Jonique Caesar, and Marcus Andrews) and three post-doctoral fellows (Katrell McWhorter, Regine Mugeni, and Calais Prince). Thus, a total of 19 health disparities research trainees were supported in FY18.
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| Byun, Jung S; Park, Samson; Caban, Ambar et al. (2018) Linking Race, Cancer Outcomes, and Tissue Repair. Am J Pathol 188:317-328 |
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| Amable, Lauren (2016) Cisplatin resistance and opportunities for precision medicine. Pharmacol Res 106:27-36 |
| Ho, Winson S; Feldman, Michael J; Maric, Dragan et al. (2016) PP2A inhibition with LB100 enhances cisplatin cytotoxicity and overcomes cisplatin resistance in medulloblastoma cells. Oncotarget 7:12447-63 |
