The UAMS Translational Research Institute Health Sciences Innovation and Entrepreneurship (HSIE) Postdoctoral
Training Program has named four postdoctoral scholars for its class of 2022. The scholars, selected in a competitive application process, will begin two years of mentored entrepreneurship training July 1.
The HSIE Postdoctoral Scholars – all from the UAMS College of Medicine – their mentors and project plans are:
Emilie Darrigues, Ph.D., will be mentored by Analiz Rodriguez, M.D., Ph.D., in the Department of Neurosurgery. Her research project will focus on improving circulating-tumor DNA detection in glioblastoma liquid biopsies and devising therapeutic nanoparticles as a strategy to specifically target glioblastoma.
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The program, which includes stipends up to $55,000 per year, is designed to help promising scientists more quickly move their discoveries into everyday practice by teaching them commercialization and team science skills. It is supported by the NRSA Training Core (TL1) component of the UAMS Clinical and Translational Science Award, grant TL1 TR003109.
“Our program goal is to accelerate biomedical discoveries to improve health,” said Nancy Rusch, Ph.D., who directs the program for the UAMS Translational Research Institute. “I am very enthusiastic about this group of scholars. They all have exceptional talent and they are pursuing projects that can make a real impact on health outcomes.”
The HSIE Postdoctoral Training Program provides support annually for eight postdoctoral fellows (four in each year of the two-year program). The program is a partnership between the UAMS Translational Research Institute and the Entrepreneurship Graduate Program in the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. In addition to Rusch, professor and chair of the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology; the program’s leadership team includes Kevin Sexton, M.D., assistant professor of the Department of Surgery, and Nancy Gray, Ph.D., president of BioVentures and professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology. Pamela Kahler is program manager.
The first group of HSIE Scholars named in July 2019 are: Melody Greer, Ph.D. (mentor, Fred Prior, Ph.D.), Samir Jenkins, Ph.D. (mentor, Robert Griffin, Ph.D.), Ashta Malhotra, Ph.D. (mentors, Amanda Stolarz, Pharm.D., Ph.D.; and Jawahar Mehta, M.D., Ph.D.), and Aaron Storey, Ph.D. (mentor, Rick Edmondson, Ph.D.).