- Grant title: Mutation Spectrum Analysis in Minorities with Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer
Summary: David Carbone, M.D., Ph.D., and colleagues at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center and Meharry Medical College, Nashville, Tenn., will study polymorphisms or genetic variations among minorities with non-small cell lung cancer. African-Americans have a significantly greater risk of developing lung cancer and lung cancer mortality rates are higher for African-American males than any other ethnic group. The cancer investigators will search for genetic mutations that may explain higher rates of disease as well as differences in the way some groups of patients respond to treatment. The results will provide tremendous insight to the genomic factors which influence susceptibility, pathogenesis, drug sensitivity and survival in African-Americans with non-small cell lung cancer. This information may prove useful for the development of screening tests for lung cancer, as well as novel treatments for the disease.
Funding: Nearly $1 million over two years from the National Cancer Institute
- Stimulus Fund project to examine impact of bullying on children
David Cole, chair of the Department of Psychology at Vanderbilt University's Peabody College, has received nearly $760,000 in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 funding to study the impact of chronic bullying and peer harassment on children's self esteem and mood, their ability to handle future challenges and their risk of depression. Cole and his colleagues will work within schools to study students who have been chronically victimized by their peers and those who have not and will compare how these students see themselves and how they process what is happening around them. The researchers hypothesize that those students who have been chronically victimized will be more likely to have emotional and behavioral problems, to be depressed and to have low self-esteem. They further expect that harsh and critical parenting will make these problems worse, whereas warm, supporting parenting and a group of friends will help mitigate them. Information from this project will facilitate the construction of programs to prevent the emergence of depression in young people. The funding was awarded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development.
- Grant title: Vanderbilt Electronic Systems for Pharmacogenomic Assessment (VESPA)
Summary: Researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center have received a two-year, $6.4 million "Grand Opportunities" stimulus grant from the National Institutes of Health to test a key aspect of "personalized medicine." The question: can genetic information embedded in the patient's electronic medical record help improve treatment outcomes and avoid adverse drug effects? "If we are able to find a set of genetic variants that reliably predict whether you would get an adverse effect of a medicine ... then we might imagine doing a panel of genotyping on every single person who comes through the door," said Dan Masys, M.D., chair of Biomedical Informatics, who is leading the study with Dan Roden, M.D., assistant vice chancellor for Personalized Medicine. The goal is to determine whether responses to certain drugs detailed in medical records could have been predicted by variations in corresponding DNA samples stored in Vanderbilt's massive DNA databank, "BioVU."
First-year funding: $4,389,204 from the Office of the Director, NIH
$795,408 from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences
$6.4 million over two yearsNew jobs created: Six
- Grant title: Vanderbilt Molecular Target Discovery and Development Center
Summary: Researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center have received a two-year, $4.7 million "Grand Opportunities" stimulus grant from the National Institutes of Health to launch a ground-breaking cancer drug discovery program. A joint effort of the Vanderbilt Institute of Chemical Biology (VICB) and the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, the new center initially will hone in on "triple-negative" breast cancer, a particularly deadly form of the disease. Researchers will try to identify genes that are the "drivers" for the different cancer subtypes, and then fashion drugs to block the action of the proteins encoded by the genes, with the intent of killing the cancer cells. "The beauty of this approach is that if you end up with drugs at the end of this whole process, you already know which patients should get them," said VICB director Lawrence Marnett, Ph.D., and the grant's principal investigator. "This is really personalized drug discovery." First-year funding: $1,100,111 from the Office of the Director, NIH
$1,100,112 from the National Cancer Institute
$4.7 million over two yearsNew jobs created: 10
- Grant title: Analysis tool for heritable and environmental network associations
Summary: Marylyn Ritchie, Ph.D., who directs the Computational Genomics Core at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, seeks to determine the connections between genetic and environmental factors that contribute to common, complex diseases like diabetes. She and her colleagues are using Vanderbilt University's supercomputer "to develop a way to integrate genetic data with other types of knowledge and with public databases," she said. The stimulus funding has enabled Ritchie to accelerate her research and nearly double her lab staff. "This is a huge grant," she said.
First-year funding: $ 922,959 from the National Library of Medicine
New jobs created: three to four
- Grant title: Genetic and developmental analyses of fragile X syndrome
Summary: Fragile X Syndrome is a developmental brain disorder that is the most commonly inherited form of both mental retardation and autism spectrum disorders. It is caused by altered expression of a gene called FMR1 (fragile X mental retardation 1) that results in the loss of its protein product, FMRP. Kendal Broadie, Ph.D., Stevenson Professor of Neurobiology and professor of Biological Sciences and Pharmacology at Vanderbilt University, has developed a model for the disease in the fruit fly Drosophila. He and his colleagues will use the fly model to characterize the role of FMRP in normal brain development and what happens when the protein is absent. The goal is to improve understanding of the disorder and, potentially, help develop new ways to treat it.
First-year funding: $532,205 from the National Institute of Mental Health
Read more about this grant (see second page).
- Grant title: Conventional vs. mindfulness intervention in parents of children with disabilities
Summary: One in five children has a developmental disability. Parents who care for children with disabilities can experience "remarkably high levels of stress, anxiety and depression," said Elisabeth Dykens, Ph.D., director of the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center for Research on Human Development. Dykens has received a two-year Challenge Grant from the National Institutes of Health to compare two ways to help parents manage that stress: a conventional support group and a technique called Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, which teaches breathing, movement and awareness. Five parents will be trained - and paid - to run support groups. "This is a really good fit for the disability field," Dykens said. "Parent-to-parent support and information-sharing is the glue that holds disability communities together."
First-year funding: $498,782 from the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine
New jobs created: five
Read about more research projects that have received Recovery Act funding.
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