Before the terms “life-course” and “lifespan” research became more commonplace, Rosalind Wright, M.D., MPH, began studying how early-life experiences were contributing to the conditions she was seeing in her adult pulmonary patients.

Wright, a research leader at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, was a keynote speaker for the inaugural Advancing Arkansas Lifespan Research Conference in September, sponsored by TRI, Arkansas Children’s Research Institute (ACRI), and the Lifespan Cardiometabolic Health Creativity Hub in the College of Medicine.

To help make her case for lifespan research, she invoked the quote, “It’s easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.” 

“When I’m taking care of patients in their 40s, 50s and 60s and they’ve already got multiple comorbidities and their lungs are shot, there’s only so much I can do,” she told a diverse audience of UAMS-affiliated researchers at the Robinson Center in Little Rock. “But if we pursue this life-course perspective, we have a real opportunity to make a difference.”

Wright is dean for Translational Biomedical Sciences and holds the Horace W. Goldsmith Professorship in Children’s Health Research at Mount Sinai Kravis Children’s Hospital and principal investigator for the Institute for Clinical and Translational Sciences at the Icahn School of Medicine. She is a developmental epidemiologist with transdisciplinary training in environmental health and stress mechanisms.

Wright gave one of three keynote presentations during the Sept. 13, 14 conference.

Other keynote speakers were Fred Prior, Ph.D., distinguished professor and chair of the UAMS College of Medicine Department of Biomedical Informatics, and Amanda Dettmer, Ph.D., a research scientist at the Child Study Center, Yale School of Medicine.

Elisabet Borsheim, Ph.D., Laura James, M.D., and Peter Mourani, M.D., served as the event’s moderators. 

Borsheim, a professor in the College of Medicine departments of Pediatrics and Geriatrics, leads the Cardiometabolic Health Creativity Hub.

James is TRI director and UAMS associate vice chancellor for Clinical and Translational Research.

Mourani is president of ACRI and senior vice president and chief research officer for Arkansas Children’s.

Life-course research is a key part of ACRI’s strategic plan and it is advocated by the NIH and its National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) to strategically promote health and combat diseases as they progress across the lifespan.

ARLife

Prior’s presentation introduced an exciting new data integration system called ARLife that will be key to lifespan research for UAMS-affiliated researchers.

“ARLife is the first baby step toward building an informatics and data management resource that allows us to really do lifespan research effectively here in Arkansas, to be able to track all of our people across their lifespan,” he said.

It will be pilot tested as part of a new life-course research grant opportunity announced during the conference. The one-year $100,000 award is being offered by ACRI with funds from the Arkansas Biosciences Institute.  

Prior and his team have expertise in data integration having led development of similar tools and processes nationally and internationally.

“We’re using what we’ve learned to crosslink databases in a privacy-preserving way,” Prior said.

ARLife can link and harmonize electronic health records data from UAMS, Arkansas Children’s Hospital, and the UAMS Arkansas Center for Health Improvement, which maintains the Arkansas All-Payer Claims Database.

Dettmer said the CTSA-funded Yale Center for Clinical Investigation (YCCI) is working to harmonize datasets and find collaborating institutions as part of the effort.

“We’re really keen to foster collaborations with other CTSAs so that we can show NCATS that we’re collaborating across CTSAs to really leverage existing resources to spawn and launch lifespan research,” she said.

Primate Studies

The YCCI lifespan initiative emphasizes critical developmental periods and how early-life stress may impact typical biological development and lifelong health.

One of the challenges studying humans, Dettmer said, is that much of the work necessarily relies on retrospective accounts, and if the studies are prospective it takes decades to get age-related health outcomes.

Long-term research at Yale with rhesus monkeys, which have about a 30-year lifespan, can be an important complement to human lifespan studies, she said.

“Rhesus monkeys are an extremely valuable comparative and causal model for lifespan health,” she said.

Conference attendee and poster presenter Andrew Brown, Ph.D., was excited to see UAMS and ACRI-based researchers come together with wide-ranging expertise for conducting lifespan research.

“The conference was an inspiring collaboration between ACRI and TRI that really walked the talk of needing to work across disciplinary silos if we want to improve the lives of Arkansans,” said Brown, associate professor in the Department of Biostatistics and a biostatistics core director for the Center for Childhood Obesity Prevention at ACRI.

He said the announcement of the $100,000 grant demonstrates the commitment to lifespan research.

The conference also included a poster session as well as oral presentations from Keshari Thakali, Ph.D., Steven Barger, Ph.D., Jamie I. Baum, Ph.D., Ashley Acheson, Ph.D., Tatiana Wolfe, Ph.D., and Craig Porter, Ph.D.

In this issue of The TRIbune, we feature a research project co-led by one of our KL2 scholar graduates, Taren Swindle, Ph.D., that is utilizing the resources of the UAMS Rural Research Network. Swindle and Lorraine McKelvey, Ph.D., are using the network to study an expansion of their innovative nutrition education program, Together, We Inspire Smart Eating (WISE).

This issue also includes our Study of the Month, featuring a multi-site stroke study led at UAMS by Sanjeeva Onteddu, M.D., with research services provided by TRI.  

We also highlight the results of our Summer Writing Challenge 2023, which concluded with an ice cream celebration and award ceremony.

Read The TRIbune. 

Our latest TRIbune newsletter features a UAMS academic-community partnership recently funded by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) that was informed and inspired by TRI’s Community-Based Participatory Research Scholars Program. 

The team led by Melissa Zielinski, Ph.D., is using a $250,000 PCORI award to address health issues among women involved in the justice system. 

Our TRI Study of the Month features Laura Hays, Ph.D., and her UAMS Rural Research Network-supported study in collaboration with the UAMS North Central Family Medical Center in Batesville. 

We also highlight our two new Health Sciences Innovation and Entrepreneurship (HSIE) trainees, postdoctoral fellows who will receive two years of support as they learn how to commercialize their ideas. 

Read The TRIbune.

Akilah Jefferson, M.D., M.Sc., a TRI KL2 Mentored Research Career Development Award scholar, has been published in the journal Pediatrics, with an article titled, “Asthma Quality Measurement and Adverse Outcomes in Medicaid-Enrolled Children.”

Jefferson and her coauthors found that a key tool used to evaluate pediatric risk of asthma-related adverse events may be a poor method for guiding pediatric population health management programs across diverse settings. The findings related to the tool, called the asthma medication ratio (AMR), were based on analyses using the Arkansas All-Payer Claims Database to identify Medicaid-enrolled children.

“AMR performed poorly in identifying risk of adverse outcomes among Medicaid-enrolled children with asthma,” the article concluded, noting that new population health frameworks are needed to accurately identify children with asthma and improve asthma management and outcomes.

Jefferson is an assistant professor in the College of Medicine Department of Pediatrics, Division of Allergy and Immunology.

The TRI KL2 Scholars Program provides promising young clinical and translational investigators the training, mentoring and protected time to develop an independent research program. Learn more about the program here.

The UAMS Translational Research Institute Health Sciences Innovation and Entrepreneurship (HSIE) Postdoctoral Training Program has named two postdoctoral scholars for its class of 2023. The scholars, selected in a competitive application process, will receive two years of mentored entrepreneurship training.

The HSIE postdoctoral trainees, their research goals and mentors are:

Henry A. Palfrey, Ph.D., is a postdoctoral fellow in the College of Pharmacy Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences. His research goal is to conduct studies to screen a library of compounds and determine the ability of novel epoxylipid drugs to provide protection against radiation-induced kidney and cardiovascular injury

Mentor: John D. Imig, Ph.D., professor and chair, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences; and vice president for therapeutics at BioVentures LLC. 

Ashley Pike, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow in the Brain Imaging Research Center of the Psychiatric Research Institute (PRI). Her primary research goal is to implement advanced neuroimaging techniques for clinical problem solving in multiple sclerosis (MS). Mentor: Tatiana Wolfe, Ph.D., assistant professor, medical imaging physicist, PRI, College of Medicine Department of Psychiatry

We are thrilled to announce that the AtKisson Training Group (ATG) will be conducting three grant-writing workshops for UAMS-affiliated researchers this fall, free of charge! If you are looking to advance your academic career and secure funding for your projects, this is an opportunity you don’t want to miss.

ATG, led by M.S. (Peg) AtKisson, Ph.D., an acclaimed public speaker and expert in the field, is known for empowering academic researchers with the skills to excel in grant writing and leadership. The workshops are sponsored by TRI and Pearl McElfish, Ph.D., MBA, director of the UAMS Division of Community Health & Research.

Here are the workshop details:

Developing and Funding Your Research (two sessions, four hours each):

Dates: Sept. 28, 29; Time: 9 a.m. – 1 p.m.

In this comprehensive workshop, you will learn valuable insights into planning, time management, and structuring your NIH grant proposals. Through engaging lectures and practical activities, you’ll gain the necessary tools to craft effective research proposals that stand out. The session will focus on specific aims, research strategy, significance, innovation, and approach, supported by hands-on exercises and helpful templates. In addition, this workshop also addresses team management, planning for productivity and publications, and working toward sustainable funding for your research. Take advantage of this opportunity to understand the “why” behind the “what” of successful grant writing.

Register here.

How to Craft Effective Grant Renewals and Resubmissions (four hours):

Date: Oct. 5; Time: 9 a.m. – 1 p.m.

Are you looking to renew your R01 or R15 grant? This workshop will guide you through the details involved in the renewal process. Delve into topics such as productivity, projected budget, and research trajectory, as well as writing a compelling progress report and navigating NIH Type 2 submissions. Gain the confidence to strengthen your grant renewal submissions effectively. Registrants with a planned resubmission to work on in this workshop should submit their “pink sheet” of reviewer comments at registration. You will engage in some hands-on work and leave this workshop with a specific roadmap to success on your resubmission. 

Register here.

How to Prepare Your NIH K Award Application (four hours):

Date: Oct. 12; Time: 9 a.m. – 1 p.m.

If you are aspiring to secure an NIH K award, this intensive workshop is tailored to meet your needs. Receive in-depth guidance on every aspect of a K award proposal, understanding the purpose of each section and how they must align. With the knowledge gained from this workshop, you’ll be better equipped to create a standout K award application.

Register here.

Special Note:

Another free ATG-led grant-writing workshop, “Structuring Proposals” will be held March 21 and 22, 2024, 9 a.m. – noon, each day. Be sure to save the dates, and you can register early here. 

(Note: It is recommended that if you attend the Developing and Funding Your Research workshop, you should not also attend Structuring Proposals, as there is significant overlap on the grant development training in both sessions.)

Contact: Adam Kleinerman, AKleinerman@uams.edu

Submit Your Manuscript(s) in the 2023 Summer Writing Challenge!

Calling all UAMS-affiliated researchers! If you received any TRI support since 2017, we invite you to join your colleagues for this friendly manuscript competition and the opportunity to win great prizes and recognition. 

Prizes will be awarded based on academic rank. Last year, David Ussery, Ph.D., won the Sage Scribe Award for Most Submitted Manuscripts for the Rank of Professor. Who will be this year’s Sage Scribe?

Other award categories for most manuscripts include: 

• Astounding Apprentice (assistant professors/instructors)
• Wise Wordsmith (associate professors)

Please submit your manuscripts here through Aug. 31.

Associate professors and assistant professors are currently tied with the most submitted manuscripts so far. We are still awaiting the first manuscript submission from a postdoctoral fellow! View the Leaderboard here. 

TRI will host a mixer Thursday, Sept. 7, 3-4 p.m., to celebrate the winners and recognize all participants at both the Little Rock and Northwest Arkansas campuses.

View the flyer.

Questions? Contact Nikolas Berardi, NDBerardi@uams.edu.