Grant List
Represents Grant table in the DB
GET /v1/grants?page%5Bnumber%5D=2&sort=-program_officials
{ "links": { "first": "https://cic-apps.datascience.columbia.edu/v1/grants?page%5Bnumber%5D=1&sort=-program_officials", "last": "https://cic-apps.datascience.columbia.edu/v1/grants?page%5Bnumber%5D=1405&sort=-program_officials", "next": "https://cic-apps.datascience.columbia.edu/v1/grants?page%5Bnumber%5D=3&sort=-program_officials", "prev": "https://cic-apps.datascience.columbia.edu/v1/grants?page%5Bnumber%5D=1&sort=-program_officials" }, "data": [ { "type": "Grant", "id": "15798", "attributes": { "award_id": "1DP2AI192737-01", "title": "Decoding multidrug-resistant pathogen dynamics for clinically-relevant wastewater surveillance", "funder": { "id": 4, "ror": "https://ror.org/01cwqze88", "name": "National Institutes of Health", "approved": true }, "funder_divisions": [ "National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)" ], "program_reference_codes": [], "program_officials": [ { "id": 32875, "first_name": "INKA I", "last_name": "SASTALLA", "orcid": "", "emails": "", "private_emails": "", "keywords": null, "approved": true, "websites": null, "desired_collaboration": null, "comments": null, "affiliations": [] } ], "start_date": "2025-07-23", "end_date": "2030-06-30", "award_amount": 534000, "principal_investigator": { "id": 32887, "first_name": "Medini K", "last_name": "Annavajhala", "orcid": "", "emails": "", "private_emails": "", "keywords": null, "approved": true, "websites": null, "desired_collaboration": null, "comments": null, "affiliations": [] }, "other_investigators": [], "awardee_organization": { "id": 2657, "ror": "", "name": "CHILDREN'S HOSP OF PHILADELPHIA", "address": "", "city": "", "state": "PA", "zip": "", "country": "United States", "approved": true }, "abstract": "Multidrug-resistant bacteria (MDRB) contribute increasingly to morbidity, mortality, and healthcare costs. Extended-spectrum beta-lactam- and carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales (ESBL-E and CRE) are MDRB of particular concern due to their demonstrated ability to evolve into highly transmissible clones and acquire and spread antibiotic resistance determinants. Traditional epidemiological surveillance typically focuses on outbreaks of MDRB causing clinical infections, underestimating the burden of these pathogens within hospital systems. Broader efforts that account for asymptomatic carriage and environmental and community reservoirs would be ideal to track and mitigate the spread of MDRB. Wastewater surveillance has proven an effective tool for public health pathogen monitoring, as shown with SARS-CoV-2, but has not been established in clinical settings. This proposal will develop new systems to leverage wastewater for clinically applicable, proactive, and readily deployable MDRB monitoring. In Aim 1, we will establish standardized longitudinal surveillance strategies to inform infection control responses. We will use long-read metagenomics and novel bioinformatic approaches to rapidly identify significant changes in relative or absolute abundance of ESBL-E or CRE compared to site-specific baselines. We will also establish methods to translate wastewater testing data into interpretable “action thresholds” for use by hospital and clinical teams. In Aim 2, we will identify factors enabling the emergence of novel ESBL-E and CRE genotypes in the wastewater environment. Wastewater sampling can identify novel resistant genotypes before detection of clinical infections. We will further develop our novel Metapore-C technique to link bacterial hosts with resistance gene-harboring mobile elements and will use this approach to identify environmental factors such as wastewater antibiotic levels and plumbing design associated with acquisition of resistance. Lastly, in Aim 3 we will devise wastewater testing methodologies suited to resource-limited clinical settings. Given the costs and infrastructure needed for comprehensive clinical surveillance, wastewater testing is better poised to aid in mitigation of MDRB under resource constraints. Yet, current wastewater surveillance approaches are often impractical in such settings. Our strategies for reducing per-sample costs and the analytical burden of wastewater data interpretation, as piloted at a pediatric hospital in Gaborone, Botswana, will serve as a proof-of-concept for wastewater MDRB testing in diverse contexts. Overall, this project will significantly broaden the ability of wastewater surveillance to inform hospital and clinical care efforts, while establishing best practices for global surveillance of antimicrobial resistance in hospital wastewater.", "keywords": [ "2019-nCoV", "Address", "Antibiotic Resistance", "Antibiotics", "Antimicrobial Resistance", "Bacterial Infections", "Bioinformatics", "Biological Testing", "Botswana", "COVID-19 pandemic", "Childhood", "Clinical", "Communities", "Complement", "Data", "Data Analyses", "Detection", "Development", "Disease Outbreaks", "Elements", "Enabling Factors", "Environment", "Environmental Risk Factor", "Epidemiologic Monitoring", "Epidemiology", "Genetic Materials", "Genomics", "Genotype", "Goals", "Health Care Costs", "Health Care Systems", "Horizontal Gene Transfer", "Hospitals", "Infection", "Infection Control", "Infection prevention", "Infrastructure", "Link", "Metagenomics", "Methodology", "Methods", "Mobile Genetic Elements", "Molecular", "Monitor", "Morbidity - disease rate", "Multi-Drug Resistance", "Outcome", "Patients", "Pediatric Hospitals", "Plasmids", "Plumbing", "Population", "Postdoctoral Fellow", "Prevalence", "Protocols documentation", "Public Health", "Research", "Resistance", "Resource-limited setting", "Resources", "Sampling", "Site", "Standardization", "System", "Techniques", "Testing", "Therapeutic", "Thinking", "Translating", "Treatment Failure", "United States", "Work", "beta-Lactams", "bioinformatics pipeline", "carbapenem resistant Enterobacterales", "clinical application", "clinical care", "clinical sequencing", "clinically relevant", "combat", "cost", "cost effective", "design", "experience", "health care settings", "hospital care", "improved", "innovation", "low and middle-income countries", "microbiome", "microbiota", "microorganism", "mortality", "multi-drug resistant bacteria", "multi-drug resistant pathogen", "novel", "pathogen", "resistance gene", "resistance mechanism", "response", "surveillance strategy", "tool", "wastewater sampling", "wastewater surveillance", "wastewater testing" ], "approved": true } }, { "type": "Grant", "id": "15790", "attributes": { "award_id": "1R21AI193738-01", "title": "Combined pathogen and host-based diagnostic to identify etiology of lower respiratory tract infection", "funder": { "id": 4, "ror": "https://ror.org/01cwqze88", "name": "National Institutes of Health", "approved": true }, "funder_divisions": [ "National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)" ], "program_reference_codes": [], "program_officials": [ { "id": 32875, "first_name": "INKA I", "last_name": "SASTALLA", "orcid": "", "emails": "", "private_emails": "", "keywords": null, "approved": true, "websites": null, "desired_collaboration": null, "comments": null, "affiliations": [] } ], "start_date": "2025-08-05", "end_date": "2027-07-31", "award_amount": 244044, "principal_investigator": { "id": 7629, "first_name": "GAYANI", "last_name": "TILLEKERATNE", "orcid": null, "emails": "", "private_emails": "", "keywords": null, "approved": true, "websites": null, "desired_collaboration": null, "comments": null, "affiliations": [ { "id": 246, "ror": "https://ror.org/00py81415", "name": "Duke University", "address": "", "city": "", "state": "NC", "zip": "", "country": "United States", "approved": true } ] }, "other_investigators": [], "awardee_organization": { "id": 2652, "ror": "", "name": "DUKE UNIVERSITY", "address": "", "city": "", "state": "NC", "zip": "", "country": "United States", "approved": true }, "abstract": "Lower respiratory tract infection (LRTI) is the leading infectious cause of death globally. Despite its prevalence, the exact etiology of LRTI is unknown in the vast majority of cases. Even when identified, bacteria or viruses in nasopharyngeal (NP) or sputum samples may be colonizers in the upper tract rather than the cause of infection in the lower tract. Unclear LRTI etiology results in the overprescription of antibacterials, which in turn drives the global crisis in antibacterial resistance. Antibacterial overprescription and resistance are greater in low- or middle-income countries (LMICs), where basic diagnostic capacity is limited. Host-based diagnostics, which assess the host immune response to infection, have recently emerged as a complementary method to pathogen-based diagnostics for identifying the class of respiratory infection. Our team has developed host- based gene expression classifiers using peripheral blood samples to differentiate viral versus bacterial respiratory infection. The goal of the current application is to develop an integrated diagnostic that uses a single, non-invasive NP sample to detect both pathogen and host response to identify LRTI etiology. The following specific aims will be conducted at a collaborative research site in Sri Lanka: 1) Develop a novel NP- based gene expression classifier to identify viral versus non-viral LRTI, and 2) Design and validate an integrated pathogen and host gene expression test to identify viral versus non-viral LRTI using a quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) assay. For aim 1, we will use previously collected NP samples from clinically adjudicated viral and non-viral LRTI patients in Sri Lanka and conduct low-input RNA sequencing. Machine-learning approaches will identify host gene expression classifiers that discriminate viral versus non-viral LRTI. For aim 2, the genes identified in the NP-based classifier, as well as nucleic acid targets for two respiratory viruses that are frequently implicated in true infection as well as asymptomatic colonization (SARS-COV-2 and human rhinovirus [HRV]), will be migrated onto TaqMan Low-Density Array (TLDA) cards. A prospective cohort of patients will be enrolled in Sri Lanka, and etiological testing and clinical adjudications will be performed as the reference standard to identify viral (including SARS-CoV-2 and HRV) and non-viral LRTI. Using an optimally retrained and parsimonious viral versus non-viral classifier, we will perform a feasibility analysis of incorporating pathogen detection and host-response classifier. Among samples with TLDA-based pathogen detection for SARS-CoV-2 or HRV, performance of the host- response classifier to distinguish viral versus non-viral LRTI will be assessed. Successful completion of these aims will result in the development of a novel diagnostic that integrates host and pathogen detection using a single, non-invasive NP sample to identify the etiology of LRTI. Translation of this assay to a rapid platform will help shift the current diagnostic paradigm for LRTI.", "keywords": [ "2019-nCoV", "Anti-Bacterial Agents", "Bacteria", "Bacterial Drug Resistance", "Bacterial Infections", "Biological", "Biological Assay", "Blood Tests", "Blood specimen", "Bronchoscopy", "COVID-19 detection", "Cause of Death", "Clinical", "Country", "Data", "Development", "Diagnostic", "Diagnostic Procedure", "Enrollment", "Etiology", "Fever", "Future", "Gene Expression", "Gene Targeting", "Genes", "Goals", "Hour", "Human", "Immune response", "Income", "Infection", "Influenza", "Lower Respiratory Tract Infection", "Machine Learning", "Manuscripts", "Methods", "Nasopharynx", "Nucleic Acids", "Pathogen detection", "Patients", "Performance", "Pilot Projects", "Polymerase Chain Reaction", "Prevalence", "Procedures", "Prospective cohort", "Reference Standards", "Research", "Resistance", "Respiratory Signs and Symptoms", "Respiratory Tract Infections", "Respiratory syncytial virus", "Rhinovirus", "Sampling", "Site", "Sputum", "Sri Lanka", "Testing", "Time", "Training", "Translating", "Upper respiratory tract", "Viral", "Virus", "Work", "adjudication", "biobank", "density", "design", "differential expression", "experience", "migration", "novel", "novel diagnostics", "pathogen", "peripheral blood", "prospective", "respiratory virus", "transcriptome sequencing", "translation assay" ], "approved": true } }, { "type": "Grant", "id": "15789", "attributes": { "award_id": "1R56AI191526-01", "title": "Novel Statistical Methods for Confounded and Incomplete Network Data", "funder": { "id": 4, "ror": "https://ror.org/01cwqze88", "name": "National Institutes of Health", "approved": true }, "funder_divisions": [ "National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)" ], "program_reference_codes": [], "program_officials": [ { "id": 32873, "first_name": "MISRAK", "last_name": "GEZMU", "orcid": "", "emails": "", "private_emails": "", "keywords": null, "approved": true, "websites": null, "desired_collaboration": null, "comments": null, "affiliations": [] } ], "start_date": "2025-08-06", "end_date": "2026-07-31", "award_amount": 822015, "principal_investigator": { "id": 9648, "first_name": "Ilya", "last_name": "Shpitser", "orcid": null, "emails": "", "private_emails": "", "keywords": null, "approved": true, "websites": null, "desired_collaboration": null, "comments": null, "affiliations": [ { "id": 344, "ror": "https://ror.org/00za53h95", "name": "Johns Hopkins University", "address": "", "city": "", "state": "MD", "zip": "", "country": "United States", "approved": true } ] }, "other_investigators": [ { "id": 32874, "first_name": "Eric Joel", "last_name": "Tchetgen Tchetgen", "orcid": "", "emails": "", "private_emails": "", "keywords": null, "approved": true, "websites": null, "desired_collaboration": null, "comments": null, "affiliations": [] } ], "awardee_organization": { "id": 2627, "ror": "", "name": "UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA", "address": "", "city": "", "state": "PA", "zip": "", "country": "United States", "approved": true }, "abstract": "Studies of public health interventions aimed at controlling the spread of infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS or COVID19 often face important methodological challenges due to pervasive network dependence, confounding and widespread missing data. Each of these complications has separately received considerable attention, however, methods to tackle them when they coexist are currently lacking. We will develop new statistical methodology, specifically causal identification theory and robust estimation theory which we plan to apply to address pressing scientific questions in infectious disease research using data from two randomized trials and two observational studies with data at hand, where both missing data, and network structure occur including the HAALSA South African Study, the Networks, Norms, and HIV/STI Risk Among Youth (NNAHRAY) study, and the Botswana Combination Prevention Study (BCPP) and the Home-based Interventionto Test and Start (HITS) cluster randomized trial. Success in the proposed research will not only allow for robust conclusions to be drawn from data in the above studies, despite the presence of missing data, the potential for confounding bias, and complex social network structure; it will also provide a methodological template for addressing similar questions beyond these four studies as confounded, missing and dependent data are routinely co-occurring complications in Social and Infectious Disease Epidemiology.", "keywords": [ "Accounting", "Address", "Algorithms", "Area", "Attention", "Botswana", "COVID-19", "Caring", "Cluster randomized trial", "Communicable Diseases", "Communities", "Complex", "Complication", "Data", "Dependence", "Development", "Face", "Family", "Family member", "Formulation", "Goals", "HIV", "HIV/AIDS", "HIV/STD", "Hand", "Health", "Hepatitis C", "Home", "Household", "Human immunodeficiency virus test", "Imprisonment", "Incentives", "Incidence", "Individual", "Infection", "Infectious Disease Epidemiology", "Infectious Diseases Research", "Intervention", "Kinship Networks", "Measures", "Methodology", "Methods", "Modeling", "Observational Study", "Outcome", "Participant", "Policies", "Population", "Prevention", "Prevention program", "Process", "Public Health", "Randomized", "Recording of previous events", "Research", "Risk", "Selection Bias", "Social Interaction", "Social Network", "South African", "Statistical Methods", "Structure", "Techniques", "Testing", "Youth", "behavior test", "community transmission", "financial incentive", "high risk sexual behavior", "interest", "mortality", "novel", "participant enrollment", "prevent", "primary endpoint", "public health intervention", "randomized trial", "semiparametric", "simulation", "social", "success", "theories", "uptake", "user friendly software" ], "approved": true } }, { "type": "Grant", "id": "15788", "attributes": { "award_id": "1R16GM159146-01", "title": "Building Reliable Vision-Language Assistant for Dermatology AI through Modeling Uncertainties in Multimodal LLMs", "funder": { "id": 4, "ror": "https://ror.org/01cwqze88", "name": "National Institutes of Health", "approved": true }, "funder_divisions": [ "National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS)" ], "program_reference_codes": [], "program_officials": [ { "id": 32871, "first_name": "WUHONG", "last_name": "PEI", "orcid": "", "emails": "", "private_emails": "", "keywords": null, "approved": true, "websites": null, "desired_collaboration": null, "comments": null, "affiliations": [] } ], "start_date": "2025-08-12", "end_date": "2029-06-30", "award_amount": 175470, "principal_investigator": { "id": 32872, "first_name": "Zhiqiang", "last_name": "Tao", "orcid": "", "emails": "", "private_emails": "", "keywords": null, "approved": true, "websites": null, "desired_collaboration": null, "comments": null, "affiliations": [] }, "other_investigators": [], "awardee_organization": { "id": 2651, "ror": "", "name": "ROCHESTER INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY", "address": "", "city": "", "state": "NY", "zip": "", "country": "United States", "approved": true }, "abstract": "Diagnosis delay is one of the key factors that lead to skin cancer death, especially for melanoma diagnosis during the COVID-19 pandemic. The long examination time and limited dermatological access have been the major roadblocks to the preventive treatment of skin cancers to lower the high mortality rate. Developing a clinical AI agent that can analyze digital skin images and provide timely, interactive text responses to patient symptoms and inquiries will significantly mitigate the nationwide dermatologist shortage, thereby improving the early diagnosis chance and teledermatology accessibility for melanoma as well as other skin diseases. Conventional dermatology AI methods mainly focus on medical image recognition to identify skin lesions and malignancies, falling short in visual-language assistance for remote healthcare services. A conversational diagnostic AI model, which is able to answer medical questions by sensing subtle visual patterns of skin disorders/cancers, is still in urgent need. The long-term goal of this research program is to develop a reliable large visual-language (VL) model that enables conversational Dermatology AI to facilitate early melanoma diagnosis and general skin care. The proposed research will generate accurate and interpretable clinical responses by finetuning Large Language Models – LLMs (e.g., the generative AI models deployed in ChatGPT) through answering questions and visual reasoning in multimodal contexts. Specifically, the project will realize three aims: 1) Build a new multimodal LLM specifically for dermatology to discern melanoma and other skin diseases and to automatically answer questions relevant to skin lesions. 2) Study uncertainties stemming from data bias and distribution shifts to enhance the reliability of LLM-powered AI diagnosis in multimodal contexts and teledermatology environments. 3) Determine the visual relevance in LLM decisions based on the rich public dermatological images with clinical text annotations. The proposed research will establish a new multimodal LLM that interweaves visual reasoning and uncertainties to advance Dermatology AI in broad VL assistance tasks, enabling automatic conversational diagnostic in teled- ermatology and providing new insights about how LLM understands skin lesions and dermatological knowledge. A pixelwise visual instruction tuning approach and a novel multi-level uncertainty quantification framework will be developed, providing technical foundations to benefit a wide range of LLM-based healthcare research. This project will be the first large visual-language research study that investigates LLM's intelligence and reliability in coping with multimodal dermatology contexts – visual skin lesions and text clinical annotations/dialogues. The success of this project will provide transformative AI techniques in assisting early melanoma diagnosis and remote skin care, leading to better teledermatology accessibility for patient treatments, reducing mortality from skin cancers through timely detection, and revolutionizing dermatological access in public healthcare systems.", "keywords": [ "Accounting", "Artificial Intelligence enhanced", "Behavior", "Benchmarking", "Benign", "COVID-19 pandemic", "Cellular Phone", "Cessation of life", "ChatGPT", "Clinical", "Cutaneous Melanoma", "Data", "Death Rate", "Dependence", "Dermatologic", "Dermatologist", "Dermatology", "Dermoscopy", "Detection", "Development", "Diagnosis", "Diagnostic", "Disease", "Early Diagnosis", "Environment", "Evaluation", "Foundations", "Generations", "Goals", "Grain", "Hallucinations", "Health Care", "Health Care Research", "Health Care Systems", "Image", "Instruction", "Intelligence", "Knowledge", "Language", "Learning", "Lesion", "Life", "Machine Learning", "Malignant Neoplasms", "Medical", "Medical Imaging", "Melanoma", "Methods", "Modeling", "Morphologic artifacts", "Noise", "Patients", "Pattern", "Preventive treatment", "Prognosis", "Protocols documentation", "Public Health", "Research", "Resolution", "Risk", "Series", "Skin", "Skin Cancer", "Skin Care", "Skin Imaging", "Skin Malignancy", "Symptoms", "Techniques", "Text", "Time", "Training", "Translations", "Uncertainty", "Underserved Population", "United States", "Vision", "Visual", "artificial intelligence model", "chatbot", "clinical imaging", "coping", "data acquisition", "design", "digital", "diverse data", "generative artificial intelligence", "health care service", "improved", "insight", "large language model", "lens", "mortality", "multimodality", "neglect", "novel", "programs", "remote health care", "research study", "response", "skin disorder", "skin lesion", "stem", "success", "teledermatology", "trustworthiness" ], "approved": true } }, { "type": "Grant", "id": "15787", "attributes": { "award_id": "1R13HD118735-01", "title": "Health, Mortality, & Aging Among People with Criminal Legal System Contact in America", "funder": { "id": 4, "ror": "https://ror.org/01cwqze88", "name": "National Institutes of Health", "approved": true }, "funder_divisions": [ "Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD)" ], "program_reference_codes": [], "program_officials": [ { "id": 32868, "first_name": "RANDOLPH CHRISTOPHER", "last_name": "CAPPS", "orcid": "", "emails": "", "private_emails": "", "keywords": null, "approved": true, "websites": null, "desired_collaboration": null, "comments": null, "affiliations": [] } ], "start_date": "2025-08-01", "end_date": "2028-07-31", "award_amount": 10000, "principal_investigator": { "id": 32869, "first_name": "Sade", "last_name": "Lindsay", "orcid": "", "emails": "", "private_emails": "", "keywords": null, "approved": true, "websites": null, "desired_collaboration": null, "comments": null, "affiliations": [] }, "other_investigators": [ { "id": 32870, "first_name": "Bryan Lamont", "last_name": "Sykes", "orcid": "", "emails": "", "private_emails": "", "keywords": null, "approved": true, "websites": null, "desired_collaboration": null, "comments": null, "affiliations": [] } ], "awardee_organization": { "id": 2650, "ror": "", "name": "CORNELL UNIVERSITY", "address": "", "city": "", "state": "NY", "zip": "", "country": "United States", "approved": true }, "abstract": "PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT: Criminal justice contact is an important contributor to population variation in health outcomes, including mortality, morbidity, and aging. During and following the COVID-19 pandemic, people in American jails, prisons, and detention centers experienced elevated health risks that exacerbated their already high morality and aging precariousness. This proposal requests support for a three-year conference program on, “Health, Mortality, and Aging Among People with Criminal Legal System Contact in America,” with each year focusing on critical questions about the health of incarcerated people that have emerged since the COVID-19 crisis. These interdisciplinary conferences will harness the research and expertise of established and emerging scholars conducting research at the intersections of health, mortality, and aging in economics, sociology, demography/population science, law, criminology, public health, medicine, and public policy. The proposed conference programs are innovative by including the participation of people affected by legal system involvement, as well as by investigating population heterogeneity to formulate and to advance a bold new research agenda that will benefit affected communities. The program has four specific aims: (1) to advance scientific knowledge and research recommendations to improve health across the life-course for people involved in the criminal legal system; (2) to amplify the voices of affected people, families, and communities; (3) to train the next generation of criminal legal scholars; and (4) to engage multiple audiences. Deliverables will include: (1) three special issues, each devoted to a unique conference theme over the three years (i.e., mortality, health, and aging), allowing for the discrete and unique treatment of each topic; and (2) research briefs that translate findings into potential interventions and recommendations that broadly engage the individuals, families, and communities subject to criminal justice contact, as well as other stakeholders (government officials, prison and court actors, non-profits, and other advocates). By discussing and documenting how life-course transitions that intersect with the criminal legal system matter for socio-economic, health, and well-being, this conference will engage and advance the conceptual and empirical dialogues that began with several National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine workshops in 2013 and 2020, and, more recently, a half-day seminar in 2024. As leaders in the criminal legal field, the investigative team and Cornell University are uniquely positioned to host this program.", "keywords": [ "Acute", "Advocate", "Affect", "Aging", "American", "Area", "Attention", "COVID-19 pandemic", "Cessation of life", "Chronic", "Collaborations", "Collection", "Communities", "Community Health", "Consumption", "Correctional Institutions", "Criminal Justice", "Criminology", "Data", "Dedications", "Demography", "Development", "Economics", "Educational workshop", "Engineering", "Epidemiology", "Event", "Exclusion", "Exposure to", "Family", "Government Officials", "Health", "Imprisonment", "Individual", "Intervention", "Jail", "Journals", "Knowledge", "Laws", "Legal", "Legal system", "Life Cycle Stages", "Life Expectancy", "Lived experience", "Measures", "Medicine", "Mentors", "Methodology", "Methods", "Morality", "Morbidity - disease rate", "Outcome", "Participant", "Personal Satisfaction", "Persons", "Population", "Population Heterogeneity", "Population Sciences", "Positioning Attribute", "Prisons", "Public Health", "Public Policy", "Recommendation", "Reporting", "Request for Proposals", "Research", "Research Personnel", "Risk", "Scientific Advances and Accomplishments", "Scientific Inquiry", "Social Sciences", "Sociology", "Training", "Translating", "Translational Research", "United States National Academy of Sciences", "Universities", "Variant", "Voice", "career", "court", "detention center", "experience", "forging", "health difference", "improved", "improved outcome", "individualized medicine", "innovation", "labor market", "life span", "mortality", "next generation", "population health", "prison population", "programs", "public health relevance", "research and development", "socioeconomics", "symposium", "theories" ], "approved": true } }, { "type": "Grant", "id": "15786", "attributes": { "award_id": "1R01HL173153-01A1", "title": "Statistical Methods for Information Synthesizing Using Multiple Existing Longitudinal Cohort Studies", "funder": { "id": 4, "ror": "https://ror.org/01cwqze88", "name": "National Institutes of Health", "approved": true }, "funder_divisions": [ "National Heart Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI)" ], "program_reference_codes": [], "program_officials": [ { "id": 32866, "first_name": "MICHAEL", "last_name": "WOLZ", "orcid": "", "emails": "", "private_emails": "", "keywords": null, "approved": true, "websites": null, "desired_collaboration": null, "comments": null, "affiliations": [] } ], "start_date": "2025-08-01", "end_date": "2029-05-31", "award_amount": 500660, "principal_investigator": { "id": 32867, "first_name": "Yifei", "last_name": "Sun", "orcid": "", "emails": "", "private_emails": "", "keywords": null, "approved": true, "websites": null, "desired_collaboration": null, "comments": null, "affiliations": [] }, "other_investigators": [], "awardee_organization": { "id": 781, "ror": "", "name": "COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY HEALTH SCIENCES", "address": "", "city": "", "state": "NY", "zip": "", "country": "United States", "approved": true }, "abstract": "Building on the valuable groundwork laid by the Collaborative Cohort of Cohorts for COVID-19 Research (C4R), this research project aims to advance the statistical methods used in pooled cohort studies. Pooled cohort studies are a powerful tool in clinical and epidemiological research, enabling the detection of subtle effects and interactions and improving the generalizability of findings through increased sample diversity. However, they pose unique challenges, particularly systematic missing data and potential heterogeneity across studies. Our goal is to address these challenges and improve the robustness of pooled cohort studies. To achieve this goal, we have structured four specific aims: Under Aim 1, we propose a novel Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) framework for robust statistical inference across multiple studies dealing with systematically missing data. Our investigation will probe into the missing data mechanism across multiple samples, employing density ratio weight- ing to handle the heterogeneity in covariate and outcome distributions. Under Aim 2, we propose nonparametric predictive models that leverage data from multiple studies with systematically missing data. We will develop a gradient boosting algorithm for versatile prediction model accommodating predictors of varying detail. Addition- ally, we will design algorithms for cohort-specific prediction models that take advantage of information from other cohorts. Aim 3 extends the proposed methods for systematically missing data and cohort heterogeneity to right- censored time-to-event data. Under Aim 4, we perform comprehensive evaluations through simulations and real data analyses, and develop user-friendly analytical pipelines for the proposed methods. Our research design and methods are centered around developing, testing, and refining these new statistical methods. These methods will then be evaluated both via simulation and real-world application to the C4R data. The long-term objective is to establish reliable tools for integrating multiple cohorts and conducting individual participant data meta-analysis. The development of these robust statistical methods and a systematic pipeline for the pooled analysis of system- atically missing data will provide valuable tools for researchers working with pooled cohort data. This project will enhance the validity and reliability of findings from the C4R study, and thereby contribute to a more accurate un- derstanding of risk and resilience factors for COVID-19 severity and outcomes. Our findings will be disseminated widely, including the development of user-friendly software to facilitate the application of our proposed methods.", "keywords": [ "Address", "Adoption", "Algorithm Design", "Algorithms", "Atherosclerosis", "COVID-19", "COVID-19 severity", "Clinical Research", "Cohort Studies", "Complex", "Data", "Data Analyses", "Detection", "Development", "Equation", "Evaluation", "Event", "Exclusion", "Funding", "Goals", "Heterogeneity", "Individual", "Investigation", "Longitudinal cohort study", "Meta-Analysis", "Methods", "Modeling", "National Heart Lung and Blood Institute", "Outcome", "Participant", "Procedures", "Research", "Research Design", "Research Methodology", "Research Personnel", "Research Project Grants", "Risk Factors", "Sampling", "Scheme", "Specific qualifier value", "Statistical Data Interpretation", "Statistical Methods", "Structure", "Target Populations", "Testing", "Time", "United States National Institutes of Health", "Validity and Reliability", "Variant", "cohort", "data harmonization", "data integration", "density", "diverse data", "epidemiology study", "global health", "gradient boosting", "improved", "innovation", "interest", "novel", "post-pandemic", "predictive modeling", "real world application", "research study", "resilience factor", "secondary analysis", "simulation", "tool", "user friendly software", "user-friendly" ], "approved": true } }, { "type": "Grant", "id": "15784", "attributes": { "award_id": "1R34HL177243-01A1", "title": "Empowering Cardiovascular Health in Custodial Grandparents (ECG)", "funder": { "id": 4, "ror": "https://ror.org/01cwqze88", "name": "National Institutes of Health", "approved": true }, "funder_divisions": [ "National Heart Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI)" ], "program_reference_codes": [], "program_officials": [ { "id": 32863, "first_name": "REBECCA A", "last_name": "CAMPO", "orcid": "", "emails": "", "private_emails": "", "keywords": null, "approved": true, "websites": null, "desired_collaboration": null, "comments": null, "affiliations": [] } ], "start_date": "2025-08-01", "end_date": "2028-07-31", "award_amount": 197160, "principal_investigator": { "id": 32864, "first_name": "MinKyoung", "last_name": "Song", "orcid": "", "emails": "", "private_emails": "", "keywords": null, "approved": true, "websites": null, "desired_collaboration": null, "comments": null, "affiliations": [] }, "other_investigators": [], "awardee_organization": { "id": 2648, "ror": "", "name": "OREGON HEALTH & SCIENCE UNIVERSITY", "address": "", "city": "", "state": "OR", "zip": "", "country": "United States", "approved": true }, "abstract": "There has been a steady increase in grandparent caregiving in the US. This acceleration is due to recent trends in domestic violence, parents’ incarceration, parents’ death due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and opioid overuse that increase familial instability and leave more grandchildren to be cared for by custodial grandparents. These grandparent caregivers face ongoing stressors as they navigate legal custody arrangements, cope with loss of their own child(ren), or face social isolation. A higher prevalence in an array of social determinants of health often put them at higher risk for cardiovascular disease (CVD): belonging to a racial/ethnic minority, living below the poverty line, living in single-caregiver households, and having lower levels of educational attainment. Additionally, custodial grandparents appear to have higher rates of adverse childhood experiences, another known risk for CVD. This unique mixture of stressors manifests in custodial grandparents’ health, where they are at higher risk for CVD compared to their non-caregiving peers. However, there is a dearth of intervention addressing custodial grandparents’ CVD risk. To address this gap and optimize healthy aging and cardiovascular health among this growing at-risk population, we will implement a virtually delivered, evidence-based CVD risk reduction intervention - The Rural Caregiver Heart Health Education [RICHH] Intervention. The RICHH intervention was originally targeted for adult caregivers of adult family members with a chronic illness, and has not been tested in the context of custodial grandparents’ CVD risk. We propose a 3-year planning project to determine the feasibility, acceptability, and initial effect of the RICHH intervention conducted with custodial grandparents. We will employ a mixed method design and conduct a 2-arm randomized controlled trial with 70 custodial grandparents in Oregon. The specific aims are: 1) modify the RICHH intervention to target custodial grandparents from a variety of backgrounds; 2) employ the re-designed intervention and assess its feasibility and acceptability; and 3) evaluate and refine the RICHH protocol among our team members and explore the initial effect of the intervention based on measures of CVD risk, self- management behaviors, and depressive symptoms at 4-months and at 6-months, compared to baseline. Expected outcomes are to complete the sufficient and scientifically necessary groundwork to support a future clinical trial that will test the effectiveness of the RICHH intervention with a longer follow-up and increased inclusivity of participants from marginalized populations, with the objectives of: a) preventing CVD-related morbidity and mortality and overall physical decline, b) improving psychological well-being in these grandparents, and c) fostering a more heart-healthy environment in grandfamilies.", "keywords": [ "2 arm randomized control trial", "Acceleration", "Address", "Adherence", "Adult", "Affect", "Affective", "American", "Attitude", "Behavior", "Blood Pressure", "Body mass index", "COVID-19", "COVID-19 mortality", "COVID-19 pandemic", "Cardiac health", "Cardiovascular Diseases", "Caregivers", "Child", "Child Rearing", "Chronic Disease", "Clinical Trials", "Community Health Aides", "Custodial Care", "Data", "Data Collection", "Development", "Dietary intake", "Domestic Violence", "Educational Intervention", "Educational Status", "Effectiveness", "Environment", "Evaluation", "Face", "Family member", "Focus Groups", "Fostering", "Future", "Glycosylated hemoglobin A", "Goals", "Group Interviews", "Health", "Health education", "Heart", "High Prevalence", "Home", "Household", "Imprisonment", "Intervention", "Knowledge", "Legal", "Link", "Lipids", "Measures", "Mental Depression", "Methods", "Modification", "Morbidity - disease rate", "Oregon", "Outcome", "Parents", "Participant", "Phase III Clinical Trials", "Physical activity", "Planning Theory", "Population", "Populations at Risk", "Poverty", "Preparation", "Prevention", "Procedures", "Protocols documentation", "Public Health", "Research Design", "Research Personnel", "Risk Reduction", "Rural", "Self Care", "Self Efficacy", "Self Management", "Social isolation", "Structure", "Testing", "Trauma", "Well in self", "Work", "Writing", "acceptability and feasibility", "adverse childhood events", "cardiovascular disorder risk", "cardiovascular health", "caregiving", "coping", "data management", "depressive symptoms", "design", "effectiveness testing", "empowerment", "ethnic minority", "evidence base", "experience", "follow-up", "grandchild", "grandparent", "healthy aging", "high risk", "improved", "intervention effect", "marginalized population", "member", "mortality", "nicotine exposure", "older adult", "opioid epidemic", "opioid overuse", "opportunity cost", "peer", "post intervention", "prevent", "primary caregiver", "primary outcome", "racial minority", "recruit", "retention rate", "satisfaction", "secondary outcome", "skills", "social health determinants", "stressor", "therapy design", "treatment as usual", "trend", "virtual delivery" ], "approved": true } }, { "type": "Grant", "id": "15782", "attributes": { "award_id": "1R01AI189398-01", "title": "Structural and mechanistic study of bat NLRP6 inflammasome in detecting RNA viruses", "funder": { "id": 4, "ror": "https://ror.org/01cwqze88", "name": "National Institutes of Health", "approved": true }, "funder_divisions": [ "National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)" ], "program_reference_codes": [], "program_officials": [ { "id": 32860, "first_name": "KENTNER L", "last_name": "SINGLETON", "orcid": "", "emails": "", "private_emails": "", "keywords": null, "approved": true, "websites": null, "desired_collaboration": null, "comments": null, "affiliations": [] } ], "start_date": "2025-08-01", "end_date": "2030-07-31", "award_amount": 451836, "principal_investigator": { "id": 32861, "first_name": "Chen", "last_name": "Shen", "orcid": "", "emails": "", "private_emails": "", "keywords": null, "approved": true, "websites": null, "desired_collaboration": null, "comments": null, "affiliations": [] }, "other_investigators": [], "awardee_organization": { "id": 2646, "ror": "", "name": "WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY", "address": "", "city": "", "state": "MO", "zip": "", "country": "United States", "approved": true }, "abstract": "Bats harbor the unique ability to host a wide array of emerging viruses, such as Ebola virus, Nipah virus, Hendra virus, and severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV). These RNA viruses are highly pathogenic and often lethal to humans and animals. Intriguingly, bats develop no/minimal signs of diseases in both natural and experimental infections. Significant progress has been made to suggest the altered immunological networks and dampened inflammatory signaling in bats. However, the direct viral sensing mechanisms in bats and the unique immunological features that distinguish bats from other mammals remain poorly studied. Inflammasomes are multi-protein signaling platforms that form in epithelial cells and myeloid cells upon stimulation by pathogen and damage signals. Their primary function is to active the inflammatory caspases such as caspase-1. Canonical inflammasome sensors consist mainly of nucleotide-binding domain (NBD), leucine-rich repeat (LRR)-containing (NLR) family proteins. Among these NLR proteins, NLRP6 is a unique pattern recognition receptor that is predominantly expressed in intestinal and liver system. The inflammasome function of NLRP6 has been reported to directly detect the RNA viruses (rotavirus and mouse hepatitis virus) that infect the gastrointestinal (GI) tract. On the other hand, the excessive activation of NLRP6 inflammasome may exacerbate the tissue damage and cause the autoinflammatory diseases. In bats, the GI tract represents one major organ for viral infection, while infections rarely cause symptoms. The long-term goal of our project is to understand the specific inflammasome sensing mechanisms in detecting RNA viruses in the intestinal epithelium of bats and gain the insights of how bats protect themselves from the pathogenesis of inflammation-induced intestinal barrier dysfunction. In this application, we propose to pursue the following specific aims: 1) Determine the cryo- EM structures of bat NLRP6 monomer, elucidate the biochemical foundation of bat NLRP6- dsRNA interaction, determine the cryo-EM structures of bat NLRP6 with viral dsRNA and compare the structural mechanisms of dsRNA sensing and inflammasome signaling among bat, mouse and human NLRP6; 2) Elucidate the RNA virus-induced bat NLRP6 inflammasome signaling in reconstituted intestinal epithelial cells (IECs), analyze the bat inflammasome signaling in Eonycteris spelaea (Es) in response to bat-borne RNA viruses, study the genetic role of bat NLRP6 in regulating inflammasome signaling in bat primary IECs/bat intestinal organoids. The proposed studies will guide the development of therapeutics to target GI inflammatory disorders in human based on the molecular details of bat NLRP6 inflammasome.", "keywords": [ "Address", "Affinity", "Animals", "Attention", "Binding", "Biochemical", "Biochemistry", "Biology", "Biophysics", "Blood", "Body Size", "CASP1 gene", "Caspase", "Chiroptera", "Coronavirus", "Cryoelectron Microscopy", "Data", "Development", "Diarrhea", "Disease", "Double-Stranded RNA", "Ebola virus", "Electrophoretic Mobility Shift Assay", "Enteritis", "Epithelial Cells", "Exhibits", "Flying body movement", "Foundations", "Functional disorder", "Gastrointestinal tract structure", "Genetic", "Genetic study", "Goals", "Hendra Virus", "Human", "Immune system", "Immunologics", "Immunology", "In Vitro", "Infection", "Inflammasome", "Inflammation", "Inflammatory", "Inflammatory Bowel Diseases", "Inflammatory Response", "Innate Immune System", "Interdisciplinary Study", "Intestines", "Learning", "Leucine-Rich Repeat", "Liver", "Mammals", "Maps", "Mediating", "Middle East Respiratory Syndrome", "Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus", "Molecular", "Murine hepatitis virus", "Mus", "Myeloid Cells", "Nipah Virus", "Nucleotides", "Organ", "Organoids", "Outcome", "Pathogenesis", "Pathogenicity", "Pattern", "Pattern recognition receptor", "Play", "Protein Family", "Proteins", "RNA Virus Infections", "RNA Viruses", "Recombinants", "Reporting", "Resolution", "Role", "Rotavirus", "SARS coronavirus", "Signal Transduction", "Signaling Protein", "Structure", "Symptoms", "Syndrome", "System", "Therapeutic", "Tissues", "Viral", "Viral Load result", "Virus", "Virus Diseases", "Work", "autoinflammatory", "autoinflammatory diseases", "bat-borne", "emerging virus", "experimental study", "gastrointestinal", "gastrointestinal system", "insight", "intestinal barrier", "intestinal epithelium", "life span", "metabolic rate", "monomer", "novel therapeutics", "pathogen", "prevent", "reconstitution", "response", "restraint", "sensor", "therapeutic development", "viral RNA" ], "approved": true } }, { "type": "Grant", "id": "15780", "attributes": { "award_id": "1R01CA293884-01A1", "title": "The impact of dyadic processes on smoking and cigarette craving: An experimental investigation of romantic partners and smoking friends", "funder": { "id": 4, "ror": "https://ror.org/01cwqze88", "name": "National Institutes of Health", "approved": true }, "funder_divisions": [ "National Cancer Institute (NCI)" ], "program_reference_codes": [], "program_officials": [ { "id": 32857, "first_name": "REBECCA", "last_name": "FERRER", "orcid": "", "emails": "", "private_emails": "", "keywords": null, "approved": true, "websites": null, "desired_collaboration": null, "comments": null, "affiliations": [] } ], "start_date": "2025-08-07", "end_date": "2029-07-31", "award_amount": 2202321, "principal_investigator": { "id": 32858, "first_name": "Amanda", "last_name": "Forest", "orcid": "", "emails": "", "private_emails": "", "keywords": null, "approved": true, "websites": null, "desired_collaboration": null, "comments": null, "affiliations": [] }, "other_investigators": [ { "id": 32859, "first_name": "MICHAEL Andrew", "last_name": "SAYETTE", "orcid": "", "emails": "", "private_emails": "", "keywords": null, "approved": true, "websites": null, "desired_collaboration": null, "comments": null, "affiliations": [] } ], "awardee_organization": { "id": 2644, "ror": "", "name": "UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH AT PITTSBURGH", "address": "", "city": "", "state": "PA", "zip": "", "country": "United States", "approved": true }, "abstract": "Smoking is the leading preventable cause of cancer and mortality in the US, with Covid hitting smokers especially hard. Quitting is difficult (and smoking increased during Covid), yet interventions yield only mixed success. Smokers often smoke and crave cigarettes in social settings. Public health research emphasizes social factors in smoking, and clinical studies point to the need to better understand disrupted relationship dynamics when a romantic partner or friend quits. Thus, it is striking that nearly all lab research (testing causal relations) on smoking and craving tests smokers in isolation. This neglect of social factors extends to quitting practices. Even on the most respected websites, the “social” advice for quitting offers fairly simplistic and incomplete tips that fail to consider subtle yet powerful challenges that quitting may create for smoking friends and romantic partners. Further, there is no evidence regarding how social factors exacerbate the altered smoking-related decision-making that accompanies craving, thus raising the likelihood of smoking. To develop a comprehensive understanding of the factors and processes that maintain smoking and increase relapse risk, basic experimental research that integrates social processes into existing paradigms focusing on pharmacologic and (individual) psychological aspects of addiction is needed. This basic experimental study with humans (BESH) application addresses targeted NCI Behavioral Research Program priorities focused on leveraging research on dyadic processes to examine health-related behaviors such as smoking cessation. Integrating theory and research derived from three disciplines rarely applied to smoking (experimental social psychology with a focus on dyadic processes, affective science, cognition), the project will offer a multimodal analysis of craving and smoking in two social contexts relevant to smoking (friendships, romantic couples). This project will use innovative measures of affect (e.g., an urge pressure dynamometer, speech volume, Facial Action Coding System) and decision-making to test theoretically-derived processes (e.g., shared reality, motivated reasoning, emotional contagion) that may help explain the challenges linked to quitting when rewarding social aspects of smoking are lost. The project will elucidate why some smokers may struggle managing relationships when quitting, and why social interventions may be most useful for a subset of smokers. In both a friends study and a couples study, abstinent daily and nondaily smokers will be recruited. The friends study will test the impact of a friend’s presence on cue-elicited craving, with a focus on shared craving states, and the couples study will target effects of mutual smoking versus unilateral smoking on critical social interactions and relationship perceptions thought to raise obstacles to quitting. This project will test important social-cognitive and socio- emotional mechanisms underlying craving and smoking that may identify hidden social motives for smoking that must be integrated into biopsychosocial smoking treatment. Regardless of outcome, this work will provide valuable data on emotional and cognitive processes experienced in social settings during craving and smoking.", "keywords": [ "Acoustics", "Address", "Affect", "Affective", "American", "Behavioral Research", "Cancer Etiology", "Cessation of life", "Cigarette", "Clinical", "Clinical Research", "Code", "Cognition", "Cognitive", "Couples", "Cues", "Data", "Decision Making", "Discipline", "Disclosure", "Electronic cigarette", "Emotional", "Emotions", "Event", "Face", "Friends", "Friendships", "Future", "Goals", "Health", "Health behavior", "Human", "Individual", "Intervention", "Investigation", "Language", "Link", "Malignant Neoplasms", "Measures", "Methodology", "Methods", "Modeling", "Monitor", "Nicotine", "Nicotine Dependence", "Outcome", "Patient Self-Report", "Perception", "Persons", "Pharmaceutical Preparations", "Play", "Preventable cancer cause", "Process", "Public Health", "Reporting", "Research", "Rewards", "Role", "Science", "Smiling", "Smoke", "Smoker", "Smoking", "Smoking treatment", "Social Environment", "Social Interaction", "Social Processes", "Social Psychology", "Speech", "Subgroup", "Testing", "Tobacco", "Treatment Efficacy", "Work", "addiction", "biopsychosocial", "cigarette craving", "cigarette smoking", "cognitive process", "contagion", "craving", "experience", "experimental study", "heuristics", "innovation", "insight", "member", "mortality", "multimodality", "neglect", "novel", "pharmacologic", "premature", "pressure", "prevent", "programs", "psychologic", "public health research", "recruit", "relapse risk", "smoking cessation", "smoking cue", "social", "social factors", "social interventions", "social relationships", "success", "theories", "web site" ], "approved": true } }, { "type": "Grant", "id": "15778", "attributes": { "award_id": "1R50CA305057-01", "title": "A System to Support Development and Success of NCI-Sponsored Trials for Rare Diseases", "funder": { "id": 4, "ror": "https://ror.org/01cwqze88", "name": "National Institutes of Health", "approved": true }, "funder_divisions": [ "National Cancer Institute (NCI)" ], "program_reference_codes": [], "program_officials": [ { "id": 32853, "first_name": "SONYA", "last_name": "ROBERSON", "orcid": "", "emails": "", "private_emails": "", "keywords": null, "approved": true, "websites": null, "desired_collaboration": null, "comments": null, "affiliations": [] } ], "start_date": "2025-08-11", "end_date": "2030-07-31", "award_amount": 122610, "principal_investigator": { "id": 32854, "first_name": "Kim A", "last_name": "Reiss Binder", "orcid": "", "emails": "", "private_emails": "", "keywords": null, "approved": true, "websites": null, "desired_collaboration": null, "comments": null, "affiliations": [] }, "other_investigators": [], "awardee_organization": { "id": 2627, "ror": "", "name": "UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA", "address": "", "city": "", "state": "PA", "zip": "", "country": "United States", "approved": true }, "abstract": "R50 Abstract – Reiss Gastrointestinal maligancies remain lethal and difficult-to-treat, with poor outcomes for many patients. In spite of this, we are in a moment of a scientific and clinical revolution with the development of biomarker-driven therapies for selected patients. With these advances come multiple new questions for the field, many of which the NCTN infrastructure is optimally suited to address. To date, I have demonstrated a strong commitment to clinical and translational research for populations of patients with rare subsets or biomarkers, including via the development and implementation of NCI-trials at my own institution: I am the international study chair and lead accruer for EA2192 as well as the study champion and lead national accruer for SWOG-2001. On the larger scale, I hold leadership roles within the Abramson Cancer Center (ACC) at the University of Pennsylvania and at the NCTN. I serve as the co-chair of the ECOG- ACRIN GI Committee, I am the co-leader of the ACC Cancer Therapeutics Program and I am the co-leader of the ACC Pancreatic Clinical Trial Program. These leadership positions are optimal platforms upon which to spearhead programs that (1) formally and longitudinally assist junior and mid-career oncology faculty in their quests to develop investigator-initiated studies and (2) develop a program at the NCTN that focuses on developing realistic trials for rare populations and then on accruing them successfully. To date, I have demonstrated a persistent and strong commitment to the NCI research enterprise. I have been involved with NCI-related research since my early career, initially attending meetings and later developing my own protocol, EA2192. Based on my steady engagement and input, I was appointed as the co-chair of the GI Committee in 2022 alongside Jordan Berlin (see LOS). Together, we have made a commitment to improving the process of clinical trial development, a mission that will be critical in order for the NCTN to remain competitive in an ever-changing landscape. Over the past three years, we have employed multiple initiatives including boosting the education of our investigators about the NCTN process, leaning on the excellent Working groups chairs to fine-tune concepts prior to Committee Presentation and providing substantial assistance during the submission process. With the support of the R50 Research Specialist award, I will build further on this approach in two ways: At the ACC, I will develop a sustainable program for early and mid-career investigators to provide longitudinal support in the development of investigator-initiated trials, with a particular focus on rare disease studies that can be best executed via the ECOG-ACRIN system. Within the NCTN, I will employ a novel program assisting investigators in the development and successful enrollment of trials for rare disease populations, a subset of studies that have lost ground since the COVID pandemic. Specifically, I will create a living resource for NCTN investigators that focuses on methods to design practical, feasible studies and will provide longitudinal support to those across the NCTN who are developing studies in this space. My ultimate goal is to develop and implement pragmatic clinical trials that address key questions in the field of gastrointestinal malignancies, particularly for patients with rare subsets of disease.", "keywords": [ "Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania", "Address", "American College of Radiology Imaging Network", "Award", "Berlin", "Biological Markers", "COVID-19 pandemic", "Cancer Biology", "Cancer Center", "Clinical", "Clinical Research", "Clinical Trials", "Development", "Disease", "Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group", "Education", "Faculty", "Feasibility Studies", "Genomics", "Goals", "Infrastructure", "Institution", "International", "Jordan", "Knowledge", "Lead", "Leadership", "Malignant Neoplasms", "Malignant neoplasm of gastrointestinal tract", "Methods", "Mission", "Oncology", "Outcome", "Pancreas", "Patient Selection", "Patients", "Persons", "Population", "Positioning Attribute", "Pragmatic clinical trial", "Process", "Program Sustainability", "Protocols documentation", "Rare Diseases", "Research", "Research Personnel", "Resources", "Role", "Selection for Treatments", "Southwest Oncology Group", "Specialist", "System", "Therapeutic", "Thinness", "Translational Research", "biomarker development", "biomarker driven", "cancer subtypes", "career", "design", "gastrointestinal", "improved outcome", "investigator-initiated trial", "meetings", "novel", "patient population", "process improvement", "programs", "success", "trial enrollment", "working group" ], "approved": true } } ], "meta": { "pagination": { "page": 2, "pages": 1405, "count": 14046 } } }