Thanks to everyone who participated in and attended OHSU’s inaugural Research Week, making it a huge success! Please take a moment of your time to give us feedback on the event so that we can improve the event in the future.
View a recap of the event or a list of award winners on the School of Medicine Research Voice.
The Center for Diversity & Inclusion is excited to host Monica Parker, M.D., Assistant Professor of Medicine, Division of Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology from the Emory School of Medicine on Friday, June 1, 2012 at 2 p.m. in room B60 on the eighth floor of the University Hospital. Dr. Parker’s talk, “Meaningful Engagement: Increasing Minority Participation in Research in an Academic Health Center,” will address recruitment strategies to increase minority participation in neurologic research.
For more information contact the Center for Diversity & Inclusion at 503 494-5657.
Dr. Parker graduated from the University of Nebraska School of Medicine and completed her residency in Family Medicine from the University of Mississippi at Jackson. She is a board certified Family Physician and is a member of the Georgia Academy of Family Practice, the Gerontologic Society of America, and the Geriatrics Society of Georgia. She will also be giving the keynote presentation at the 3rd Aging & Memory in the African American Community Conference in Portland on Saturday, June 2, 2012.
The National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) will soon be launching its first signature initiative, Discovering New Therapeutic Uses for Existing Molecules, which will give researchers access and funding to study compounds from Pfizer, AstraZeneca, and Eli Lilly that hit a roadblock after initial safety testing in humans. According to the NIH Extramural News: “Much like azidothymidine (AZT), which proved unsuccessful as a cancer drug but revolutionized HIV treatment, we hope that these molecules will be put to new therapeutic uses.”
NCATS has budgeted $20 million for this initiative and expects to fund 8-10 cooperative agreements. For more information on the application process (a pre-application will be required), refer to the NIH notice of intent to publish a request for applications.
The Department of Behavioral Neuroscience continues its Joseph D. Matarazzo Lecture Series this spring with visiting scientist Michael S. Fanselow, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Psychology, UCLA Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences UCLA Integrative Center for Learning & Memory. Dr. Fanselow will be discussing, “Neural Circuits that put Fear into Context,” which will explore the nature and function of fear, in particular, how fear is learned and how memories of that fear are stored in the brain.
Dr. Fanselow will be presenting Monday, May 21, 2012 in the Joseph Vey Conference Center of the Doernbecher Children’s Hospital from 2-3 p.m. to be followed by a reception with drinks and hor d’oeuvres. RSVP is encouraged and appreciated. To RSVP or for more information: contact Nicole Ernst at 503 494-9708.
Michael S. Fanselow has held academic appointments at Rennselaer Polytechnic Institute and Dartmouth College before coming to UCLA in 1987. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Washington and received the Edwin B Newman Award for Excellence in Research for his dissertation work there. He has also received the Early Career Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award, the D. O. Hebb Award from the American Psychological Association, the Troland Award from the National Academy of Science, and is a member of the honorary Society of Experimental Psychologists. He was elected President of the American Psychological Association’s Division of Behavioral Neuroscience and Comparative Psychology and President of the Pavlovian Society.
Read more…
The American Heart Association has announced its summer deadlines for a wide range of funding opportunities relating to cardiovascular disease and stroke. All proposals and applications will be due either July 17th or 18th, 2012. Don’t forget that earlier this year, the Association enacted new policies regarding membership and application fees. Find the full program descriptions below.
Your child brushes, flosses, and rinses with fluoride—but is it enough to prevent all cavities? According to new research at OHSU’s School of Dentistry, multiple strains of the cavity-causing bacteria may remain in the mouths of children even after undergoing six months of full-mouth caries restorative therapy.
For the study, plaque from seven children, ages 3 to 12, who visited the dentist with severe early childhood caries, was collected at three appointments: prior to oral care, at the two- to four-week post-treatment visit, and at the six-month recall visit. Prior to treatment, between 3 to 7 strains of mutans streptococci were isolated from each of the 7 patients. Six months later, this number diminished to 1 to 2 dominant strains, some with high-acid producing potential.
“The implication of this study are that well-accepted practices for sever childhood dental caries therapy should be more closely examined for efficacy,” says Curt Machinda, Ph.D., principal investigator and OHSU professor of integrative bio-sciences and pediatric dentistry.
Read the full article, or view the study online.
The study was published in the March-April 2012 issue of Pediatric Dentistry.
This June, major electrical upgrades will be made to the Medical Research Building, Mackenzie Hall, and Baird Hall. This means that power to these buildings will need to be shut down—and we need to know any critical needs for emergency power during the upgrades. Facilities & Logistics will be hosting a forum at noon in the OHSU Auditorium on Thursday, May 17th to discuss what will be updated and why. We highly encourage you to send a delegate from your lab to participate in this discussion.
Please direct any questions or concerns to Ian Bowen, project coordinator, at 503 494-9195.
OHSU has been invited by the V Foundation to apply for their V Scholar Program, an opportunity for young, talented cancer researchers to gain support in their development into successful, independent investigators. The two-year, $200,000 grant will provide funds directly to young scientists who are developing their own independent laboratory projects. This grant is only intended for basic science research proposals.
Only one candidate may apply from OHSU. To be eligible, the candidate must have completed at least two years of fellowship training, hold a tenured track position (more than five years since joining faculty, but less than ten since terminal degree), and must not have been promoted to associate professor. If you intend to apply, please complete this limited submission form before the June 8, 2012 internal deadline.
View the rest of this week’s Funding Alerts.
OHSU is participating in a pilot reporting program for the NIH. This won’t impact many of you yet, except that two buttons will now be available for you to choose from in NIH Commons: eSNAP and RPPR (the new reporting system). Please select the eSNAP option, not RPPR. Deborah Golden-Eppelein, director of Research Grant & Contracts, has asked us to share the following message with you explaining the pilot and changes to the system. More information will be provided to you as it becomes available, but in the meantime, leave a comment below if you have any questions.
Dear colleagues,
Between November, 2012 and January, 2013, the NIH has been mandated by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to transition from their current progress reporting mechanisms of eSNAP and 2590 to a federal-wide reporting mechanism know as the RPPR.
OHSU is one of three schools participating in a live pilot to allow stakeholder feedback before the report is mandatory the national community of researchers. We, as well as our partners at NIH value this opportunity since it has resulted in meaningful changes to policy and process in the past where institutions and federal government agencies were able work together to ease the burden of implementing grant requirements.
However, our investigators and administrators may find that our participation in the pilot will pose some confusion to those logging in to start their progress reports. All progress reports eligible for submission through the NIH Commons now contain a link to choose the RPPR report. Although this action link cautions to only choose after consulting with your institutional signing official/administrator, we know it will be inadvertently selected in some instances. Unless Research Grants & Contacts, the department and the PI have mutually agreed to join the pilot, this option should not be selected.
We are currently piloting two reports due in the month of May and will slowly ramp up the number of progress reports we pilot. At present, we plan to recruit volunteers in greater numbers as we approach the mandatory implementation date which is yet to be finalized. A perk in pilot participation provides a two week extension to investigators who choose to submit an RPPR with RGC assistance. So, if your deadline is the 16th of the month for eSNAPS, you now have until the 30th.
Deb Golden-Eppelein
Director, Research Grant & Contracts
Back in January we announced that Louis Picker, M.D., and his research team had received $8 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to further develop a promising HIV vaccine candidate. OHSU researchers have secured an additional $1 million from the Gates Foundation through their Grand Challenges Explorations funding program.
Research will be led by assistant scientist Jonah Sacha, Ph.D., at the Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute on OHSU’s West Campus. Sacha and his colleagues will attempt to develop a protective, anti-body based AIDS vaccine that prevents the virus from infecting the host, a goal that has eluded scientists for years. Instead of targeting the highly mutable virus itself, the new approach will target a surrogate marker of HIV infection to block the transmission of HIV.
Read the OHSU News release.
Upcoming Events
Recent Comments
- Sandy Bounds on Jonah Sacha, Ph.D., secures $1 million in funding for HIV vaccine research
- elliot on IACUC recognized at OHSU-wide service excellence ceremony
- Amber on TEDMEDLive simulcast, April 10-13
More Comments