School of Medicine (SOM)

Enterococcus faecalis is a hospital-associated opportunistic pathogen that causes infections with high morbidity and mortality. An increasing occurrence of multidrug-resistant enterococci has driven the need for alternative treatment strategies to combat these pathogens. In this proposal, we describe the isolation and characterization of an unusual gentamicin hypersusceptible E. faecalis strain that was cultured from a patient with infective endocarditis. We performed an in vitro resistance selection with this E. faecalis strain to generate one-step (i.e.

Access to high-quality post-intensive care unit (ICU) recovery services is a major problem for thousands of older Americans living in rural communities who survive critical illness each year. They and their families often experience uncoordinated care, poor health, reduced independence and quality of life, and high ongoing healthcare utilization. Any scalable solution will require the flexibility to address multimorbidity, physical, cognitive, and psychological dysfunction, caregiver stress, and end-of-life transitions, all of which are common.

Potassium [K+]-­deficient diets have to the global epidemic of hypertension and chronic kidney disease (CKD). Given the low cost and ease of increasing dietary [K+], more research is needed to understand how [K+] imbalance leads to these diseases. The kidneys handle 90% of [K+], and the distal convoluted DCT) acts as a [K+] sensor via the WNK-­SPAK (With-­No-­Lysine/Ste20/SPS-­1-­related proline-­alanine-­rich protein kinase) pathway.

The development of large observational health databases (OHD) has expanded the data available for analysis by pharmacoepidemiology research. The efficiency of these studies may be improved by simultaneously studying the association of multiple medications with a disease of interest. Unfortunately, prior research has demonstrated that it is difficult to distinguish true-positive from false-positive results when studying multiple exposures simultaneously, thus limiting the conclusions drawn from these types of studies and representing a major gap in the field.

Intraoperative identification of metastatic lesions is challenging due to unpredictable locations and coverage by normal tissue. Intraoperative molecular imaging (IMI) uses targeted radioisotopes and/or fluorophores to guide surgeons to cancer tissue and distinguish tumor margins from normal surrounding tissue. Radioactive isotopes and near-infrared (NIR) fluorophores complement each other in dual-labeled probes by providing both depth of detection (radioisotope) and visual delineation of tumor borders (fluorophore) with common clinically used handheld detectors.

Sepsis is a critical illness syndrome characterized by infection leading to life-threatening organ failure. Affecting over 200,000 individuals in the United States each year, sepsis accounts for nearly half of all hospital deaths and over $20 billion in yearly US hospital costs. Despite the development and dissemination of evidence-based guidelines, most patients with sepsis do not consistently receive recommended care, resulting in preventable morbidity and mortality.

The goal of this fellowship is to provide excellent multidisciplinary training in psycholinguistics, functional neuroanatomy, and intracranial neurophysiology by developing mechanistic understanding of expressive language function in the multiple regions in the medial frontal wall, specifically the supplementary motor area (SMA) and preSMA. Dysfunction in these regions has been tied to a variety of motor and language deficits including issues with motor initiation and sequencing, articulation, and sentence planning as well as speech disorders including developmental stuttering.

Behavior is the product of cortical and subcortical interactions. This is epitomized by the primate circuitry that controls eye movements. Decades of study have enumerated the seemingly redundant contributions of cortical areas like the frontal eye fields (FEF) and subcortical areas like the superior colliculus (SC) to eye movements. However, the field has largely ignored how these two areas communicate, coordinate, and transform information between them to drive precise movement of the eyes.

This application requests partial funding for the Second Pittsburgh Rust Belt Microbiome (RBM) Conference 2022. For the Second RBM Conference, we intend to leverage the strength, successes and lessons learned from the first conference held in 2019 with an exciting and forward-thinking program featuring a focus on mechanistic studies of the microbiome through cutting-edge basic and translational research and new developments in the role of the microbiome in infectious disease, clinical science, and personalized medicine.

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death among women. Researchers and clinicians that can work across disciplinary boundaries are needed to effectively understand, prevent, and reduce the burden of CVD. A focus on women and CVD is critical given the multiple sex-specific risk factors for and manifestations of CVD that remain incompletely understood. This renewal application for an NHLBI Mid-Career Investigator Award in Patient-Oriented Research seeks support for Dr.