NIH

PROJECT SUMMARY: Interest in cancer immunology has never been more intense. Breakthrough observations with inhibitory receptor blockade, combined with ground breaking advances in the use of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-modified T cell adoptive therapies have highlighted the critical need to further basic and translation research in cancer immunology. While the pipeline of potential immunotherapeutic targets is growing, the pipeline of future cancer immunologists is limited, in part due to significant demand in industry and academia.

This K22/R00 application describes a career development program designed to facilitate my transition to research independence. My goals during the mentored phase of this award are to cultivate a variety of new research skills as well as receive the career training necessary to acquire a tenure-track assistant professorship.

Walking difficulty is common and costly in older adults. While traditional exercise has been shown to promote physical and mental health and may prevent walking difficulty, such exercise has focused on strength and endurance, and has overlooked a critical component of walking ability; the timing and coordination of movement. Aging and disease alter timing and coordination as reflected by slowed neuromotor performance, increased gait variability and reduced smoothness of movement.

My long term career goal is to accelerate the use of data to improve population health. As an Assistant Professor of Epidemiology, I have focused my previous work on advancing access to biomedical data in public health. From working in several countries around the world, I have become acutely aware of the great potential for new discoveries offered by the vast amount of data on population health that is currently collected by researchers and health agencies.

There is substantial evidence that overweight and obesity during late life (� 65 years of age) confers significant risk for type 2 diabetes and co-morbid conditions. Thus, there is growing concern about the public health consequences of increased incidence of type 2 diabetes in an aging U.S. population. Studies with high risk samples have shown that lifestyle interventions significantly reduce diabetes risk and that elders are particularly responsive, showing better weight loss and lower rates of diabetes development in comparison to younger individuals.

This P30 proposal requests continued funding to support the operation of five resource modules within the Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences Research Center (OVSRC) at the Eye and Ear Institute of the University of Pittsburgh.

Suicide is an outcome of a decision process, but has rarely been investigated as such. Moreover, for many suicide-attempters, there is evidence that suicide is not a well-considered, deliberate, decision, but an impulsive one; many who attempt suicide but fail never try again, and even report great relief to be alive.

Esophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC) incidence is increasing rapidly and endoscopy-based screening has not reduced mortality despite targeting patients with known risk factors [GERD, obesity, smoking and Barrett’s esophagus (BE)]. This proposal describes a five-year training and research plan to develop expertise in the control and prevention of EAC through a K07 career-development award. The long-term research goal is to develop clinical prediction models that enable timely utilization of health resources in the detection of curable EAC.

Psoriasis is a cutaneous autoimmune disease that affects as many as 125 million people worldwide. Current therapeutics for psoriasis include systemic acting immuno-suppressive drugs for which the long-term effects remain a concern. Psoriasis is a cell-mediated disease dependent on T helper (Th) 17 effector cells that are biased by cutaneous DCs. Importantly, the stimuli that induce DCs and keratinocytes to secrete Th polarizing cytokines, particularly in psoriasis, are complex and not completely understood.

This research based training proposal is designed to build expertise in intervention research in schizophrenia (SZ), a common, chronic, disabling disorder that entails severe burden on patients and care givers. Medications, the mainstay of treatment for SZ provide only symptomatic relief and fail in the majority of cases, but pharmaceutical firms have slowed their research efforts due to uncertainty about the pathogenesis of SZ. These problems are magnified in low / middle-income countries (LMIC), where new medications are expensive and trained personnel are scant.