The Consortium of Rural States (CORES) Multi-Institutional Pilot Program has awarded funding for four one-year projects beginning July 1, 2025. Each project involves at least two of the nine consortium member sites.

The CORES institutions are funded by the Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) program of the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS). The sites are:

• University of Utah Health Clinical & Translational Science Institute
• University of New Mexico (UNM) Health Sciences Center Clinical and Translational Science Center
• Frontiers Clinical and Translational Science Institute at the University of Kansas (KUMC)
• University of Kentucky (UK) Center for Clinical and Translational Science
• University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) Translational Research Institute
• University of Iowa Institute for Clinical and Translational Science
• Dartmouth SYNERGY Clinical and Translational Science Institute
• Penn State University Clinical and Translational Science Institute
• Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) Clinical and Translational Research Institute

MUSC was welcomed to the consortium in June – after the deadline for this year’s CORES pilot grant applications.

The CORES pilots support translational science projects aimed at identifying and overcoming barriers to conducting research in rural settings. Each collaborating site funds up to $25,000 to support the project.

The awarded collaborations are:  

Dartmouth (lead), Penn State, Iowa and Utah

• Project title: Enabling Self-Care for Pessary Users in Rural Settings
• Contact Principal Investigator (PI): Kris Strohbehn, M.D., professor of obstetrics and gynecology, Dartmouth
• Site PIs: Jaime Long, M.D., associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology, Penn State; Catherine Bradley, M.D., professor, obstetrics and gynecology, urology and epidemiology, Iowa; Carolyn Swenson, M.D., associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology, Utah

Utah (lead) and UAMS

• Project title: From Heat Maps to OR Outcomes: Leveraging Privacy-Preserving Geospatial Methods to Assess Extreme Heat Impacts on Surgical Complications
• Contact PI: John F. Pearson, M.D., associate professor, Department of Anesthesiology, Utah
• Site PI: Jill Mhyre, M.D., chair, Department of Anesthesiology, UAMS

UK (lead) and Penn State

• Project title: Development of a Virtual Nutrition Lab and Educational Experience: Piloting Immersive Virtual Reality (iVR) with Adolescents Living in Rural Communities
• Contact PI: Sara Maksi, Ph.D., assistant professor of nutritional sciences, UK
• Co-PI: Courtney Luecking, Ph.D., assistant professor and extension specialist for early childhood nutrition, UK
• Site PI: Travis Masterson, Ph.D., assistant professor of nutritional sciences, Penn State

Utah (lead), Dartmouth, Iowa, UNM,

• Project title: The “PlatfoRm clinICal trIal of patientS on ECMO usIng electrONic health record harvested data” (PRECISION)
• Contact PI: Joseph Tonna, M.D., associate professor, Department of Surgery, Utah
• Site PIs: Todd D. Morrell, M.D., assistant professor of emergency medicine, Dartmouth; Elizabeth Moore, RN, BSN, associate director of Clinical Operations, University of Iowa Heart and Vascular Center; Jonathan Marinaro, M.D., professor and chief of Center for Adult Critical Care at UNM. He is founder and director of the Adult ECMO Program and medical director of the Cardiothoracic Vascular ECMO ICU and Sandoval Regional ICU.

Researchers at UAMS and the University of Utah have been selected for pilot funding from the Consortium of Rural States (CORES) to study the risks posed by extreme heat to patients recovering from surgery, particularly in rural areas where such health risks are understudied.

The University of Utah is the lead site with John F. Pearson, M.D., as principal investigator. Jill Mhyre, M.D., serves as the UAMS principal investigator.

Pearson is an associate professor of anesthesiology and a researcher in climate health and environmental epidemiology. His work focuses on the impact of air pollution on perioperative health outcomes.

Mhyre is the Dola S. Thompson Professor and Chair of Anesthesiology. Her research focuses on obstetric quality and safety.

The project is one of four recently announced by CORES. Each collaborating site, supported by Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSAs) from the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), receives up to $25,000 to support their one-year projects.

Extreme heat events threaten public health nationwide, but privacy protections have made it difficult to link local weather data with patient outcomes in large surgical registries. The collaboration is developing privacy-preserving methods to safely combine environmental exposure data with surgical records, addressing a key translational science barrier.

NCATS, which funds about 60 CTSA institutions nationwide, is dedicated to applying translational science to overcome barriers to the research pipeline. The approach developed by the UAMS and Utah researchers aims to better understand and protect patients at risk during heat waves. Their findings could inform national health policy.

In the June-July issue of The TRIbune, we spotlight how TRI’s T32 Health Sciences Innovation and Entrepreneurship (HSIE) training positioned Stephen Shrum, Ph.D., to land a key leadership role with a UAMS research team and startup company developing a potential radiation protection drug.

This issue also highlights an effort by TRI’s Community Engagement Core to cultivate partnerships with Garland County community organizations and leaders.

We also include information about our 2025 Annual Report, the TRI Summer Writing Challenge, and the new cohort of K12 Mentored Research Career Development Scholars.

Read The TRIbune. 

Henry Palfrey, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS), and his business startup team, PulseArk Technologies, reached the semifinals and earned a Best Presentation Award in the Bangkok Business Challenge, one of the world’s leading student startup competitions.

Palfrey is a third-year postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of John D. Imig, Ph.D., and a trainee in the UAMS Translational Research Institute’s T32 Health Sciences Innovation and Entrepreneurship (HSIE) Training Program.

The event, held May 22-24 at the Sasin School of Management in Thailand, marked a milestone for PulseArk and its five-member team.

“The competition in Bangkok gave us valuable feedback and momentum as we continue advancing VoluSense toward market entry,” Palfrey said, referring to the startup’s device designed for the early detection of internal bleeding — often before changes in traditional vital signs occur. The technology is being developed and tested through a collaboration between engineers at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville and medical professionals at UAMS.

“It’s one thing to develop promising science but quite another to translate it to the clinic,” said Palfrey, PulseArk’s chief technology officer. “This experience reinforced our progress on both fronts.”

Selected from over 300 applicants representing 82 institutions across 16 countries, PulseArk was one of only 20 teams invited to the semifinals—and one of just four from the United States.

In Imig’s lab, Palfrey investigates radiation-induced kidney injuries and explores pharmacotherapeutic strategies on how to mitigate such injuries. As part of the two-year HSIE fellowship, he completed a year-long New Venture Development course at UA’s Sam M. Walton College of Business, where students build startups around innovative technologies — an experience that led Palfrey to join PulseArk Technologies.

VoluSense’s development is supported by a $1.9 million grant awarded in 2024 by the Department of Defense’s Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs. The project is led by principal investigator Morten Jensen, Ph.D., associate professor of biomedical engineering at UA. Hanna Jensen, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor in the UAMS College of Medicine Department of Surgery, is overseeing the device’s translational and clinical phases. Co-investigators Jingxian Wu, Ph.D., and Robert Saunders, Ph.D., both faculty members in electrical engineering at UA, round out the research and development team.

The device is designed to detect subtle changes in blood volume by analyzing venous pressure waveforms. Using proprietary algorithms, these waveforms are converted into a blood loss score that indicates the presence or absence of hemorrhage. This approach enables clinicians and first responders to identify bleeding earlier than current methods allow.

The technology is protected by two pending U.S. patents, and PulseArk currently holds exclusive development rights granted by BioVentures LLC at UAMS.

Since last fall, the PulseArk team has competed in several pitch competitions, including the 2025 Ivey Business Plan Competition at Western University in London, Ontario, Canada; the 2025 Heartland Startup Challenge in Bentonville, Arkansas, where they took first place in the elevator pitch event; and the final round of the 2025 Arkansas Governor’s Cup in Little Rock.

The team’s next steps include finalizing the prototype and initiating preclinical studies this summer, while also securing additional seed funding to support product development, Palfrey said. PulseArk plans to begin pilot deployments in Arkansas hospitals in preparation for a targeted market launch in 2028.

“Entrepreneurship training gave me the toolkit to navigate regulatory, financial and clinical challenges all at once,” Palfrey said. “Now we’re applying those lessons.”

“Dr. Palfrey and the PulseArk team have demonstrated extraordinary vision and determination in bringing global recognition to this technology,” said Imig, professor and chair of the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences in the College of Pharmacy and director of the T32 program. “Their success in Bangkok is a testament to their innovation and teamwork, and it highlights the impact of their interdisciplinary training.”

Other members of the PulseArk team include BreeAnna Scott, chief executive officer and current M.S. candidate in biomedical engineering, as well as recent UA graduates Victoria Bourgeois, MBA, chief strategy officer; Asha Lee, M.S., chief financial officer; and Tanner Moore, M.S., chief product officer.

The Translational Research Institute’s T32 program is funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, Clinical and Translational Science Award #T32 TR004918.

The Translational Research Institute (TRI) is proud to share its 2025 Annual Report, a magazine-style publication emphasizing the impact of translational science to improve lives in Arkansas and beyond. This year’s issue spotlights the researchers, programs and partnerships that are speeding the pace of discovery with tangible health benefits.

The report includes examples of consequential research by TRI’s K12 graduates addressing unmet needs, implementation of life-changing medical practices, and machine-learning and other advances to benefit rural health research. You’ll also read about exciting new opportunities for research available through TRI’s partnerships with elite research networks across the United States. 

Browse the full report here to learn how TRI is supporting innovative research across the translational spectrum.

Trenesha Hill, Ph.D., wanted to ensure that she and her mentees weren’t talking past each other, so she signed up for TRI’s “Entering Mentoring” workshop, which uses an evidence-based approach developed by the University of Wisconsin’s Center for the Improvement of Mentored Experiences in Research (CIMER).

“I attended to enhance my mentoring practices and make a positive impact on my mentees’ development,” said Hill, an assistant professor in the College of Medicine Department of Pediatrics, Division of Psychology. “The practical tools, like communication‑style assessments and personalized mentorship contracts, will help me set clear expectations.”

Held in April, the workshop drew 16 faculty from across UAMS and was led by five CIMER-certified UAMS facilitators:

• Antiño Allen, Ph.D., professor, College of Pharmacy and TRI associate director of Pathway Initiatives
• Jennifer Vincenzo, Ph.D., MPH, PT, associate professor, College of Health Professions
• Corey Hayes, Pharm.D., Ph.D., MPH, associate professor, College of Pharmacy
• Ellen van der Plas, Ph.D., associate professor, College of Medicine Department of Pediatrics
• Tuhin Virmani, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor, College of Medicine Department of Neurology

Participants engaged in modules on building trust, effective communication, aligning expectations, goal setting, progress monitoring and navigating challenges, all grounded in CIMER’s evidence‑based, interactive mentor training curriculum.

Van der Plas was invited to facilitate after demonstrating her enthusiasm and skill in prior trainings. “CIMER engages participants rather than lecturing about best practices,” she said. “It encourages conversations about mentoring and adapting the tools provided. Mentorship has been invaluable in my career, teaching skills, modeling behaviors, and advocating for me, and I aim to pay that forward.”

Hayes highlighted the workshop’s lasting influence: “Mentoring is the role we play in academia that has the most long‑lasting effect. Using collaboration and real‑world vignettes makes CIMER tangible and easily implemented in daily mentoring activities. I hope participants walk away with tools they can use every day with their mentees.”

For Gunnar Boysen, Ph.D., an associate professor in the Fay W. Boozman College of Public Health, the workshop filled a crucial gap. “Mentorship, leadership and communication training weren’t part of my Ph.D. curriculum in chemistry,” he said. “CIMER was the perfect opportunity to beef up on these skills. In the end, I realized I need to be a better listener and to build my own mentoring team.”

As lead facilitator, Allen emphasized how the CIMER training can greatly improve mentoring practices.

“This evidence-based curriculum provides mentors with tools to build trust, align expectations and communicate clearly, which ultimately strengthens relationships and helps accelerate research translation,” he said.

Four early-career researchers have been selected to receive two years of funded translational research training and support in the UAMS Translational Research Institute (TRI) K12 Mentored Research Career Development Scholar Awards Program.

The promising researchers were selected for the 2025-2027 program period through a competitive application process. Beginning July 1, the K12 scholars will receive two years of mentored translational research training, 75% salary support and up to $25,000 a year for research, tuition, travel and education.

The scholars, their project titles and primary mentors are:

Meghan Breckling, Pharm.D., assistant professor, College of Pharmacy Department of Pharmacy Practice and Center for Implementation Research

Project: “Improving Opioid Education and Naloxone Use in Rural Community Pharmacies”

Primary mentor: Benjamin Teeter, Ph.D., Pharm.D., associate professor, College of Pharmacy Department of Pharmacy Practice and Center for Implementation Research

Maegan Calvert, Ph.D., assistant professor, College of Medicine Department of Psychiatry, Brain Imaging Research Center (BIRC)

Project: “Neural Patterns of Affect in Parent-Child Interactions”

Primary mentor: Andrew James, Ph.D., professor, Department of Psychiatry, interim director, BIRC

Mokarram Hossain, Ph.D., assistant professor, College of Pharmacy Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences

Project: “Novel Immunotherapy for Pancreatic Cancer: Extracellular Matrix-Targeting Myeloid Engager”

Primary mentor: Alan Tackett, Ph.D., professor, College of Medicine Department of Biochemistry

Whitney Norris, Ph.D., postdoctoral fellow, College of Nursing Department of Nursing Research

Project: “Multivariate Coherence Neurofeedback for Trauma Treatment: A Mechanistic and Feasibility Pilot Trial Using High-Density EEG”

Primary mentor: Linda Larson-Prior, Ph.D., professor, College of Medicine Department of Neurobiology and Developmental Science

Funding for the K12 scholars program comes from TRI, supported by the NIH National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, Clinical and Translational Science Awards K12 TR004924 and UM1 TR004909, the UAMS College of Medicine, Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute, Arkansas Children’s Research Institute, and the Central Arkansas Veterans Healthcare System.

This month’s TRIbune newsletter highlights the recent TRI AI Research Symposium, which featured UAMS artificial intelligence innovations presented by research leaders in the field and with enthusiastic support from College of Medicine Dean Steven A. Webber, MBChB, MRCP. You’ll also read how the symposium helped inspire an AI approach to the work of two UAMS researchers: Gwen Childs, Ph.D., and Melanie MacNicol, Ph.D.   

Our TRI Study of the Month features Leah Tobey-Moore, PT, DPT, MBA, an assistant professor in the College of Medicine Department of Psychiatry whose research is supported by a TRI pilot grant and is assisted by TRI’s Anja Rassman, B.S.N., RN, CCR, and Lisa Richardson, RN, CRS.  

This issue also includes a story about TRI’s three new T32 Health Sciences Innovation and Entrepreneurship postdoctoral fellow trainees: Meaghan Kingren, Ph.D., Carol Morris, Ph.D. candidate, and Quinshell Smith, Ph.D.

Read The TRIbune.

UAMS Chancellor Cam Patterson, M.D., MBA, recently visited the hospital lobby to thank researchers and clinical trial participants during UAMS’ Clinical Trials Day celebration, emphasizing the critical role that clinical trials play in advancing patient care.

“Clinical trials are designed to determine whether we are treating patients better or not,” Patterson told staff and visitors gathered in the lobby on Tuesday, May 20. “It’s kind of the last step in all the hard work that gets done in research to finally bring it to the bedside.”

UAMS research departments staffed information tables from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the hospital lobby, offering free food, beverages and giveaways to patients and employees. Research staff from the Translational Research Institute, Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute, Office of Research Regulatory Affairs, Office of Research Compliance and the Institutional Review Board participated in the celebration.

Clinical Trials Day is observed worldwide on or near May 20 each year, commemorating the first randomized clinical trial that began May 20, 1747, and discovered that citrus fruit could prevent scurvy in sailors. The day recognizes clinical research professionals and volunteer participants for their contributions to medical advances achieved through clinical trials.

Patterson acknowledged the extensive work required to conduct clinical trials, from enrolling patients to completing regulatory approvals. “The work that we do to enroll patients in clinical trials, convince them of the extra work that they need to do to get involved in it, the regulatory work, the approvals that have to happen — it’s an awful lot of work, but it’s so  important,” he said.

Patterson praised trial participants and their families, noting their willingness to take on additional responsibilities for the benefit of medical research. “I hope that you thank the patients who are getting enrolled in clinical trials and their families for the work that they do,” he said.

In addition to the snacks and beverages, research staff provided information about clinical trials conducted at UAMS. 

UAMS conducts medical research across multiple areas, testing a range of new therapies including drugs and medical devices. Clinical trials at UAMS offer Arkansans access to experimental cutting-edge treatments before they become widely available.

“This really is a critical step and why we are at UAMS and not somewhere else,” Patterson said.

UAMS College of Medicine Dean Steven A. Webber, MBChB, MRCP, joined other UAMS leaders and researchers April 29 for the Translational Research Institute (TRI) AI Research Symposium, highlighting the use of artificial intelligence in biomedical research

“Many of our faculty are already leading the way in several areas of AI-driven research, and that’s clearly something we want to see at UAMS,” Webber said in his welcome address.

The symposium was led by Fred Prior, Ph.D., distinguished professor and chair of the College of Medicine Department of Biomedical Informatics, and Mathias Brochhausen, Ph.D., professor and vice chair for Academic Programs and Faculty Development in the Department of Biomedical Informatics. Prior also leads TRI’s Comprehensive Informatics Resource Core and Brochhausen is TRI’s associate director for Strategic Collaborations.

“It’s a great opportunity to share with you some of the research that we are doing in this field,” Prior said. “We use AI tools every day; we develop new ones, and we’re helping UAMS learn how to use these technologies to advance clinical practice and biomedical research.”

Webber, also UAMS executive vice chancellor, said that AI is now touching almost every facet of health care, including research, diagnostics, risk prediction, clinical documentation, medical education and revenue cycle enhancement.

“We have to embrace these changes and make them work for us in a positive way,” he said.

The three-hour symposium drew over 50 attendees and featured presentations by:

Yasir Rahmatallah, Ph.D., associate professor, Department of Biomedical Informatics
Parkinson’s Disease Identification by Voice Assessment Using Pre-trained CNN

Jonathan Bona, Ph.D., assistant professor, Department of Biomedical Informatics
AI and Natural Language Processing

Aaron Kemp, MBA (Ph.D. candidate), co-director, NeuroCognitive Dynamics Lab; instructor, Department of Biomedical Informatics
Using Artificial Neural Networks to Mine for Markers of Abnormal Neural Network Activity among People with Parkinson’s Disease

Webber praised the research integration involving biomedical Informatics, clinical informatics and the clinical and translational science infrastructure provided by TRI.

“We have to continue to further strengthen that integration so that the AI research that’s going on here starts to directly impact the health of our patients that we serve, and I know we are poised to do that,” he said. 

Wendy Ward, Ph.D., professor and associate provost for faculty with UAMS Academic Affairs, described how AI is benefiting UAMS across its missions.

Examples include clinical tools that can draft Epic inbox responses, recommend assessments and diagnoses, generate discharge summaries and optimize billing codes. On the education front, she said UAMS has trained 100 educators in interactive AI modules, launched a journal club and student AI club and is developing a generative-AI course.

Both Prior and Ward touted the Department of Biomedical Informatics’ Creative Health AI (CHAI) Salon, an incubator of open-session workshops to develop AI solutions and collaborations. It has already produced two grant proposals and a Nature-Scientific Reports publication. A continuing medical education course on AI fundamentals is also in the works.

The symposium also included Prior’s call to action for cleaning, standardizing and curating research data to prevent “garbage in, garbage out.”

Brochhausen added that machine learning is even more powerful when combined with ontologies.

“Ontologies organize and translate information and provide an enterprise-wide vocabulary, very much like a data dictionary, but with the added power to manage that dictionary automatically, prevent contradictions, and support integration, reasoning and explainable AI,” he said.

Prior warned that “garbage in, garbage out applies even more forcefully in the world of AI,” noting that algorithms require vast quantities of high-quality, well-labeled data to train effectively.

Near the symposium’s conclusion, Prior announced that UAMS is building the legal and technical framework to offer researchers the use of large-language AI models that ensure patient data never leaves UAMS firewalls.

“If you give your data to a large language model on the Internet, it will happily reuse that data,” he said. “If it’s patient data, you’re spreading it all over the planet. Not a good thing.”

He hopes to roll out an upgraded model capable of handling images and text by summer, with hands-on training available in the fall.

TRI Director Laura James, M.D., praised Prior and Brochhausen for leading the symposium and for making it accessible to a broad audience. 

“I’m excited about where UAMS is with artificial intelligence and the things that will be developed in the near future,” she said.