In the October issue of The TRIbune, we feature one of TRI’s biggest co-sponsored events of the year, Research Expo 2024, coupled this year with the UAMS Division of Research and Innovation New Research Faculty Orientation. 

We also announce three new faculty leaders for TRI: Jason E. Farrar, M.D., Melody Greer, Ph.D., and Tuhin Virmani, M.D., Ph.D.

This issue also includes a story about Megha Sharma, M.D., whose project in TRI’s Implementation Science Scholars Program was published in the journal Pediatrics.

A story about ARresearch reveals what a rich resource it has become with nearly 11,000 registrants available to help UAMS-affiliated investigators reach their participant enrollment goals.

Read The TRIbune.

As a new faculty member at UAMS, Kristen Muller, Ph.D., said attending Research Expo 2024 and the New Research Faculty Orientation was a perfect way to start the year as a researcher.

“Being brand new, it’s really helpful learning all about the university, the processes, and putting faces with names,” said Muller, an assistant professor in the College of Health Professions Department of Audiology and Speech Pathology. “I’ve poked around the website a bit looking at the resources that UAMS has, but actually having it all laid out here and getting to meet the people and hear from them what they do and what’s available here is really helpful.”

Muller, who is conducting research in the autism community, said she was especially pleased to visit with the Translational Research Institute’s (TRI) community engagement team as well as the UAMS Division of Research and Innovation’s Office of Sponsored Programs Administrative Network (OSPAN) and the Science Communication Group.

This year’s Research Expo on Sept. 12, which drew 117 attendees, was linked for the first time with the UAMS Research & Innovation New Research Faculty Orientation at the Reynolds Institute on Aging Building.

During the orientation, which preceded the expo, TRI Director Laura James, M.D., thanked Dan Voth, Ph.D., vice chancellor for Research and Innovation, for combining the two annual events.

“I like this format, and I hope you’ll let us come back and do it again,” she said. “This is a great way to acquaint people with all the many wonderful resources that we have here at UAMS.”

Voth thanked his department leaders after they each gave brief presentations and emphasized to researchers in the audience that his division’s primary purpose is to help researchers.

“Science is hard, and you’re pursuing all this cool research, so we want to make it as easy on the administrative side as possible,” Voth said. “That’s our entire goal.”

The Research Expo included more than 40 tables and more than 50 research services available at UAMS, Arkansas Children’s Research Institute (ACRI) and the Central Arkansas Veterans Healthcare System.

Lisa Brents, Ph.D., underscored the value of the expo for all researchers, including those who are more seasoned.

“Even for investigators like me who are not new to UAMS, the expo is a great way to get a refresher on many of the infrastructural resources UAMS offers to support and enrich research,” said Brents, an assistant professor in the College of Medicine Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology. “It’s also a great opportunity to learn about changes and to interact in person with colleagues I haven’t seen in a while.”

Alexa Escapita, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow, was pleased that the Research Expo was the catalyst for meeting a potential collaborator.

“It was nice to meet a fellow postdoc who does research in kind of the same field, so we connected and we’re going to reach out for collaboration,” said Escapita, who is in the College of Medicine Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

Jasmine Stewart, M.S., a fourth-year medical student who is spending the year as part of a UAMS research team, said the expo will give her a leg up. 

“There’s a lot that I’m not familiar with, so the fact that this exists is extremely helpful,” said Stewart, a research associate at the College of Medicine Center for Hearing Health Equity.  “When I have writing assignments, or manuscripts to review, or data to analyze, instead of going to Google or Chat GPT to look up how to do something, now I’ve made contact here and I can shoot them a quick Teams message or send them an email.”

Lexus Brettell, a third-year occupational therapy doctoral candidate based at the UAMS Northwest Regional Campus, said she was impressed by the number of available resources.

“We came down from Northwest Arkansas today just to be part of this,” she said. “There are so many resources here that I didn’t know were available. There’s a lot of opportunity for funding, and funding that’s matched with mentorship. I found myself picking up so many cards, thinking that my peers or my research primary investigator may need them someday.”

Ripa Jamal, Ph.D., said she was amazed by the many resources and services offered at the expo.

“It was indeed a wonderful cross-platform for greeting and meeting with resourceful researchers and opportunities,” said Jamal, a postdoctoral fellow in the Section of Pediatric Nephrology in the College of Medicine Department of Pediatrics. “This platform gave us a chance to meet collaborators with the same interests. What stood out most for me was how involved I felt with everyone who attended. It was time well spent.”

Jamal also won a UAMS-branded cutting board during the door prize drawings, which she said was a “nice touch.” 

“Sometimes small tokens like that can serve as a pleasant reminder of the positive experiences and connections made at such events. I am looking forward to attending similar events in the near future.”

In this issue of The TRIbune, we highlight the recent Advancing Arkansas Lifespan Research Conference, which featured Neal Halfon, M.D., as the keynote speaker. The day-long event also included a diverse range of topics presented by eight UAMS-affiliated researchers, including those from Arkansas Children’s Research Institute and the Central Arkansas Veterans Healthcare System.

This issue also includes a story about TRI’s Community Engagement Core, which has joined a multisite study funded by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI). The collaboration involves seven other community engagement teams across the U.S. with the aim of promoting and strengthening institutional support for community-based research and patient/community leadership in research.

In addition, we recognize our Summer Writing Challenge winners and highlight our K12 Mentored Research Career Development Scholars Program, which has two upcoming information sessions ahead of its letter of application deadline.

Read The TRIbune.   

The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) will receive up to $2.4 million over the next four years to test prevention strategies for reducing high rates of maternal and infant deaths in the Arkansas Delta.

The grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will fund a combination of education, training, outreach and preventive health services focusing on Helena-West Helena, Lake Village and Pine Bluff. The initial $599,887 grant is for one year and must be renewed each year.

The collaborative effort led by BioVentures LLC at UAMS includes key partnerships with the UAMS Institute for Digital Health & Innovation and the UAMS Division for Academic Pathways and Workforce Partnerships.

“This is a big team effort, and the HHS grant will help us address one of the most significant, preventable health issues in our state,” said UAMS’ Stefanie Kennon-McGill, Ph.D., the grant’s principal investigator and project director, as well as senior program manager for BioVentures, which is the project’s operations manager.

Kennon-McGill noted that while BioVentures primarily helps UAMS researchers commercialize their discoveries, its role has expanded in recent years to find other innovative ways to improve the health of Arkansans.

As of March, Arkansas had the highest maternal mortality rate in the United States, at 8.6 deaths per 100,000 live births, compared to the national average of 5.4. Arkansas also has the third highest infant mortality rate in the United States, with 7.67 infant deaths per 1,000 live births, based on 2022 data.

“Our goal with this grant is to test innovative, sustainable strategies to prevent maternal and infant deaths in the Delta region,” Kennon-McGill said.

Called the Delta Maternal Outreach and Transformational Health Education Resource (Delta MOTHER) project, it will establish and track community-level health initiatives. The primary activities supported by the grant will include:

• Holding health screenings and conducting educational outreach at existing community events in Helena-West Helena, Lake Village and Pine Bluff.
• Providing four interactive educational presentations for local health care providers each year covering evidence-based, best practices in maternal and infant care.
• Engaging five college students per year who will identify community needs and work with the BioVentures team to develop their ideas for sustainable solutions and gain entrepreneurial skills and training.

The UAMS Institute for Digital Health & Innovation and its High-Risk Pregnancy Program will offer the Delta MOTHER project clinical expertise, partnership connectivity and fiscal management. Its contributions also include access to its three grant-funded satellite digital health resource centers at Lake Village, Helena-West Helena and Pine Bluff.

The Division for Academic Pathways and Workforce Partnerships will engage college students through its SUPER Program, providing opportunities for undergraduates to conduct community-based research, focusing on health challenges that affect populations with limited access to medical care.

Other key partners on the grant are the Jefferson Regional Medical Center School of Nursing in Pine Bluff, the Arkansas Rural Health Partnership in Lake Village, and UAMS East Regional Campus in Helena-West Helena.

Kennon-McGill is a 2021 graduate of the TRI KL2 (now K12) Mentored Research Career Development Scholars Program. TRI is supported by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences of the National Institutes of Health, grant UM1TR004909.

University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) researcher Taren Massey-Swindle, Ph.D., and a Louisiana Tech University collaborator have secured a $3 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to address feeding practices at 80 early childhood care and education sites in Arkansas and Louisiana.

Massey-Swindle and Julie Rutledge, Ph.D., from Louisiana Tech University in Ruston, found in prior studies that early childhood care and education settings frequently use inappropriate feeding practices such as hurrying children and encouraging them to eat more. Such practices contribute to eating less healthy foods, overeating and long-term food rejections.

A big part of the five-year, $3,043,419 grant from the NIH National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases is its “de-implementation” plans for eliminating inappropriate feeding practices. 

While early childhood teachers and caregivers may mean well, their words and actions can undermine long-term healthy eating habits, Massey-Swindle and Rutledge said.

“We have no negative judgment for these teachers,” said Massey-Swindle, a former early-childhood educator and now associate professor in the College of Medicine departments of Pediatrics and Family and Preventive Medicine. “When I was a child care provider myself, I told children to clean their plates and make a happy plate. I had no training in how to support children around positive feeding practices at mealtime.”

The issue is significant, she said, because children will eat more than 500 meals a year with the adults in their early care and education classrooms.

“It’s really an opportunity to support those adults in this setting with training that they otherwise don’t get,” Massey-Swindle said.

The 80 sites are in the Little Rock and Russellville areas in Arkansas and in Ruston and New Orleans areas in Louisiana.

By the end of the five-year study, the researchers expect to have determined the effectiveness of a package of strategies that can be applied and tailored for early care and education settings across the United States. They also expect that by removing inappropriate feeding practices, their results will show a positive impact on children’s dietary behaviors. They will track children’s willingness to try different foods, fear of new foods, and how many fruits and vegetables they eat.

“Finding ways to impact the health of children in our communities is really my passion,” said Massey-Swindle, who recently became director of the Arkansas Children’s Research Institute (ACRI) Link, a core of services focusing on community-engaged dissemination and implementation science. “From a scientific perspective, we’re going to be answering some really compelling questions about whether de-implementation effects can be sustained over time.”

To help secure the NIH award, Massey-Swindle used a pilot grant from the UAMS Translational Research Institute to get preliminary data on the effectiveness of a virtual communication approach to reducing inappropriate feeding practices. Rutledge also received pilot funding from the Lincoln Health Foundation in Louisiana to test in-person approaches to reducing inappropriate feeding practices. Ultimately, they developed an effective hybrid model using in-person and virtual approaches.

“We really work hard to get robust preliminary data to support our R01-level NIH applications,” Massey-Swindle said. “Without funding like the Translational Research Institute provides, there’s no way for researchers to do that. I think it strengthened our application a great deal.”

She is also a graduate of the Translational Research Institute’s KL2 (now K12) Mentored Research Career Development Scholars Program, which provides two years of mentored research support, salary support and seed funding.

In addition, Massey-Swindle said the Arkansas Children’s Nutrition Center (ACNC) provided funding and support for her to attend an intensive grant development workshop with one-on-one writing, coaching and detailed feedback that helped her submit a competitive grant application. The ACNC is supported by Arkansas Children’s, UAMS and the USDA Agricultural Research Service.

The Translational Research Institute is supported by the NIH National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, Clinical and Translational Science Award #UM1 TR004909.

In this issue of The TRIbune, we highlight the work of TRI’s evaluation team, led by Jessica Presley, MPP. In addition to the team’s vital work evaluating TRI’s programs, it has also helped lead a major project in collaboration with the seven other Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) institutions from rural states – the Consortium of Rural States (CORES). Their work, utilizing the Translational Science Benefits Model, earned an invitation to speak at the annual American Evaluation Association in October.  

Our Study of the Month features Geoffrey Muller, M.D., the UAMS principal investigator on a multisite anesthesia study, with TRI’s Gwendolyn Cobbs, B.S.N., RN, as the lead study coordinator.

We also highlight two big events: The Sept. 10 Advancing Arkansas Lifespan Research Conference, and the Sept. 12 Research Expo 2024 and New Research Faculty Orientation.

Read The TRIbune.

We are excited to announce the release of the 2024 UAMS Translational Research Institute (TRI) Annual Report! This 52-page, magazine-style publication celebrates the remarkable dedication and talent of UAMS-affiliated faculty and staff, showcasing noteworthy advancements in translational science.

The report highlights TRI’s impact on UAMS’ growing research enterprise, capturing the essence of our work and highlighting the translational research achievements of the past year. It brings to life the important research conducted by our talented UAMS-affiliated colleagues.

It is impossible to condense all of our success stories into one publication, but we are proud of the diverse range of projects and advancements featured within its pages. We applaud everyone who contributed to these accomplishments.

We hope you find this report as inspiring and enlightening as we do.

Read the 2024 TRI Annual Report!

A partnership facilitated by the Translational Research Institute (TRI) gives UAMS faculty new opportunities to lead and join a range of impactful research projects as part of a federally supported network of institutions.  

The network, OneFlorida+ PCORnet is a clinical research network overseen by the University of Florida Clinical and Translational Science Institute. In addition to UAMS, its institutional partners are in Alabama, Georgia and California.

PCORnet is a national resource supported by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI). It offers the kind of research ecosystem that has long been pursued: a fully integrated network where vast, highly representative health data, research expertise, and patient insights are built-in and accessible from the very start, according to the PCORnet website.

The OneFlorida+ Clinical Research Network spans 20 million patients, 4,100 providers, 1,240 practices, 14 academic institutions and 22 hospitals. It consists of two main components: a) the OneFlorida+ Data Trust, which contains curated and cleaned data using the PCORnet Common Data Model (CDM); and b) the Practice-Based research Network, which allows researchers to conduct pragmatic clinical trials and other interventional studies in research-ready clinics.

“OneFlorida+ is an amazing opportunity to engage in research regionally and expand UAMS’ clinical research footprint,” said Mathias Brochhausen, Ph.D., TRI associate director for Strategic Collaborations and a professor in the College of Medicine Department of Biomedical Informatics. “OneFlorida+ also gives us access to a very well curated set of de-identified patient data.”

Brochhausen is one of two UAMS principal investigators for PCORnet, serving as the research lead. UAMS’ Ahmad Baghal, M.D., Ph.D., is also a principal investigator and serves as the technical lead. He is director of the TRI-supported Arkansas Clinical Data Repository (AR-CDR).

Brochhausen recently initiated a day-long meeting at UAMS with the OneFlorida+ PCORnet leaders. The meeting included a morning session with TRI leadership and an afternoon session included a broader group of research faculty from across UAMS.

“The meeting really launched our efforts to begin sharing this amazing opportunity with our colleagues here,” Brochhausen said. “We are receiving emails every week about other PCORnet sites searching for collaborators, so we want our research community and potential PIs to be aware of that opportunity. It could really be a massive accelerator for research in the institution.”