Grants at a Glance: University of Pittsburgh Schools of the Health Sciences Announce New Research Funding

Innovative research conducted by faculty of the University of Pittsburgh Schools of the Health Sciences contributes to a better understanding of the causes and origins of disease and aids in the development of more effective treatment approaches. Government and private-sector funding is critical to this process of scientific inquiry. The following projects recently have been awarded grants that will enable the continuation of existing projects or the pursuit of new areas of investigation:

GRANT AWARDED TO EXPLORE ROLE OF BETA-CATENIN IN LIVER CANCER
Satdarshan P. S. Monga, M.D., associate professor of pathology and medicine at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, has been awarded $1.2 million by the National Cancer Institute to fund research into the role of beta-catenin in the development and growth of the most common form of liver cancer, hepatocellular cancer (HCC). Beta-catenin is a key protein in cellular interactions that is over-expressed in many cancers and thought to turn on genes involved in the development of HCC. Dr. Monga’s project, based on a mouse model, will focus on the biological mechanisms of tumor formation, specifically those related to beta-catenin. According to Dr. Monga, the beta-catenin cell-signaling pathway is a very promising therapeutic target that may stop or slow the development of HCC in patients. Dr. Monga will use data gathered in the current study to examine the therapeutic effect of drugs proven to be safe in patients and known to inhibit this pathway, in preclinical models.
Contact: Clare Collins; collcx@upmc.edu

NURSING EDUCATION INITIATIVES FUNDED
Helen K. Burns, Ph.D., R.N., associate dean for clinical education, associate professor in the department of health and community systems in the School of Nursing, received a $98,500 grant from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for her proposal Pennsylvania Nursing Education Initiatives. Burns also received a $1,192,174 grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration for her proposal Faculty Development Integrated.
Contact: Megan Grote; groteme@upmc.edu

SONG LI RECEIVES GRANT AWARD FOR CHEMOTHERAPEUTIC DRUG RELEASE
Song Li, Ph.D., associate professor of pharmaceutical sciences in the School of Pharmacy, received $445,500 from the National Institutes of Health to fund his project titled “Nanosized Delivery System for Site-Specific Drug Release.” Liposomal drugs improve the outcome of treatment mainly through increasing the amount of drugs accumulated at tumor sites and through decreasing systemic toxicity. Dr. Li’s study proposes to improve current liposomal vectors to facilitate the drug release selectively at the tumor site, improving the bioavailability of chemotherapeutic drugs and further enhancing anti-tumor activity. Successful completion of these studies may lead to the development of novel liposomal drugs that will advance the treatment of uPA-positive cancers.
Contact: Megan Grote; groteme@upmc.edu

PROJECT EXPLORING AN EPIGENETIC TREATMENT FOR PROSTATE CANCER
The Prostate Cancer Foundation has awarded Denise O’Keefe, Ph.D., assistant professor, department of urology, School of Medicine, $98,900 for a project examining an epigenetic treatment for prostate cancer. Epigenetics refers to reversible, heritable changes in gene regulation. The most frequent changes seen in the DNA of prostate cancers are epigenetic in nature rather than genetic and are maintained by the action of DNA methyltransferase I. In her study, Dr. O’Keefe will use an in vivo animal model to determine whether a drug called decitabine, recently approved by the FDA for treatment of myelodysplastic syndromes, inhibits the action of DNA methyltransferase I and slows prostate tumor cell growth.
Contact: Clare Collins; collcx@upmc.edu

GRANTS HELP TO PREPARE SPECIALTY RESIDENTS TO CARE FOR NATION’S ELDERLY
Neil Resnick, M.D., and Chiara Ghetti, M.D., have received two-year Geriatrics Education for Specialty Residents (GSR) grants from the American Geriatrics Society (AGS) aimed at better preparing specialty residents to care for the nation’s rapidly increasing population of older adults. Adults 65 and older make up a growing share of the patients seen by medical specialists. The GSR program supports collaborations between surgical and related medical specialty faculty and geriatrics faculty at medical schools and hospitals. Working as a team, the faculty members develop, initiate and evaluate model initiatives that integrate geriatrics into surgical and related specialty residency training. Each two-year GSR grant of $40,000 supports curricular innovations at each team’s home institution. Pitt was one of 25 programs to receive the award.
Contact: Gloria Kreps; krepsga@upmc.edu

GRANT TO DEVELOP PREVENTION STRATEGIES FOR MEDICATION ERRORS AND ADVERSE DRUG EVENTS
Sandra Kane-Gill, Pharm.D., M.Sc., worked collaboratively with Steve Handler, M.D., department of medicine, and Shyam Visweswaran, M.D., department of biomedical informatics, to receive a $30,000 University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Electronic Health Record Clinical Informatics, Quality and Safety (CLIQS) grant. Their grant will support use of a clinical event monitoring system as a mechanism to improve the detection of adverse drug events in the medical intensive care unit with the goal of using the data to develop “smart” alerts for the prevention of adverse drug events.
Contact: Megan Grote; groteme@upmc.edu

PHI DELTA CHI RECEIVES GRANT FOR PROMOTING DIABETES AWARENESS
The members of the School of Pharmacy’s Phi Delta Chi fraternity received a grant for $1,500 from LifeScan to help create a Spring Service Project aimed at promoting diabetes awareness. The project consisted of four major aspects: educating members and pharmacists on various aspects of diabetes; raising public awareness of diabetes, diabetes testing and medications; obtaining grants for advertising and purchasing diabetes testing equipment; and providing diabetes risk assessment. The target population for this project included underprivileged patients in the Pittsburgh area.
Contact: Megan Grote; groteme@upmc.edu

The University of Pittsburgh Schools of the Health Sciences include the schools of Medicine, Nursing, Dental Medicine, Pharmacy, Health and Rehabilitation Sciences and the Graduate School of Public Health. The schools serve as the academic partner to the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. Together, their combined mission is to train tomorrow’s health care specialists and biomedical scientists, engage in groundbreaking research that will advance understanding of the causes and treatments of disease and participate in the delivery of outstanding patient care. For fiscal year 2005, Pitt and its institutional affiliates ranked seventh nationally among educational institutions in grant support from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).