6/15/2020
Announcements
NIA Issues Strategic Directions Document for Next Five Years
The National Institute on Aging (NIA) has announced the release of its Strategic Directions for Research for 2020-2025 [secure.geron.org]. These strategic goals serve as a point of reference for the institute’s research priorities over the next five years, in addition to providing a framework for assessing NIA's research progress across that time. The strategic directions encompass the following broad goals: to understand the dynamics of the aging process; to improve the health, well-being, and independence of adults as they age; and to support the research enterprise.
Clin-STAR Transdisciplinary Clinical Aging Research Pilot Grants [t.e2ma.net]
Research opportunities to bridge junior and senior researchers from different disciplines and institutions in order to stimulate new areas of clinical aging research. The awards will be made to junior clinician-scientists who work collaboratively with an investigator from a different discipline. (see PDF attachment for more information)
1-2 year awards
$50,000 in direct costs
Letters of intent due July 15, 2020
Multiple potential funding links from CTSI See All Funding
Research Grant Opportunity:
RRF Foundation for Aging (formerly the Retirement Research Foundation) Deadline: June 15, 2020 Eligibility: 501c3 organizations proposing applied research projects that have immediate and direct implications on the adult population, ages 65 and older that will have national relevance across the US. For more information please see the attached flyer.
Recent Publications
Ø Key CC, Bishop AC, Wang X, Zhao Q, Chen GY, Quinn MA, Zhu X, Zhang Q, Parks JS. GDPD3 Overexpression Promotes Liver Steatosis by Increasing Lysophosphatidic Acid Production and Fatty Acid Uptake. J Lipid Res. 2020 May 19. [epub ahead of print] PMID: 32430316. https://www.jlr.org/content/early/2020/05/19/jlr.RA120000760.full.pdf+html
Ø Li G, Wang G, Hsu FC, Xu J, Pei X, Zhao B, Shetty A. Effects of Depression, Anxiety, Stigma, and Disclosure on Health-Related Quality of Life among Chronic Hepatitis B Patients in Dalian, China. Am J Trop Med Hyg. 2020 May; 102(5): 988-994. PMCID: PMC7204567. https://doi.org/10.4269/ajtmh.19-0007
Ø Welling P, Battle D, Byrd JJ, Burrell L, South A, Sparks S. Rigor before speculation in COVID-19 therapy. Am J of Physiol Lung Cell Mol Physiol. 2020 May 1; 318(5): L1027-L1028. PMCID: PMC7203572. https://doi.org/10.1152/ajplung.00152.2020
Ø Wu CT, Wang Y, Wang Y, Ebbels T, Karaman I, Graca G, Pinto R, Herrington DM, Wang Y, Yu G. Targeted Realignment of LC-MS Profiles by Neighbor-wise Compound –specific Graphical Time Warping with Misalignment Detection. Bioinformatics. 2020 May 1; 36(9): 2862-2871. PMID: 31950989. https://doi.org/10.1093/bioinformatics/btaa037
Ø Biffi A, Urday S, Kubiszewski P, Gilkerson L, Sekar P, Rodriguez-Torres A, Bettin M, Charidimou A, pasi M, Kourkoulis C, Schwab K, DiPucchio Z, Behymer T, Osborne J, Morgan M, Moomaw CH, James ML, Greenberg SM, Viswanathan A, Edip Guro M, Worrall BB, Testai FD, MaCauley, JL, Falcone GJ, Langefeld CD, Anderson CD, Kamel Hooman, Woo D, Sheth KN, Rosand J. Combining imaging and genetics to predict recurrence of anticoagulation-associated intracerebral hemorrhage. Stroke. 2020 June. [epub ahead of print] https://doi.org/10.1161/strokeaha.120.028310
Member Highlights
Ø From Shannon Mcacauley, PhD (Assistant Professor, Gerontology & Geriatric Medicine)
Hi All, I wanted to share our publication that came out in Cell today, highlighting some of the unique challenges facing early career investigators during COVID. We realize these are challenging times for all, but our goal was to give concrete ideas on ways to help support early career investigators post-COVID and beyond. The authors span multiple top universities, maintain different clinical and research roles, and represent different career stages. Hopefully, it can serve as a template for future conversations with regard to early career faculty but also serve as a means to promote inclusion and retention of a diverse work force.
https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(20)30678-4
Best,
Shannon
Graduate Student Highlight
Ø Isaac Ampong, PhD
Spring 2020 – Current
Faculty Lab: Michael Olivier, PhD – Professor, Molecular Medicine
Program: Metabolomics
Isaac is a physiologist and clinical biochemist with an interest in the use of metabolomics and computational tools to identify novel metabolites of several chronic diseases including chronic pain, type 2 diabetes, NAFLD, obesity and other metabolic related disorders. He completed a PhD in Biochemistry & Physiology from the University of Surrey in the United Kingdom. Prior to starting his doctoral training, he received a master’s degree in Chemical Pathology from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology and a first class degree in Molecular Biology and Biotechnology from the University of Cape Coast, all in Ghana. His PhD study focused on the role of diet and gut microbiota in lipid metabolism where he utilized metabolomics, metagenomics, immunohistochemistry and transcriptomics approaches to understand the mechanisms underlying diet associated metabolic disorders under the mentorship of Dr. Helen Griffiths. His current position as a Research Fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Michael Olivier at the Center for Precision Medicine is focused on the use of untargeted metabolomics and computational approaches to identify novel chronic pain metabolic signatures, networks and pathways relevant for diagnosis and treatment of pain related disorders. He has received several awards in the past to support his research including the Commonwealth PhD scholarship from the Commonwealth Scholarships Commission, UK.