The January-February TRIbune newsletter is here! This issue features some exciting developments in Big Data accessibility for UAMS researchers. We now offer researchers a new cohort tool and access to a larger data network. You’ll also read about Amhad Baghal, M.D., our first director of the Arkansas Clinical Data Repository (AR-CDR), formerly the UAMS Enterprise Data Warehouse. Baghal, who arrived in October, is continuing to build on the new opportunities now available, so stay tuned! TRI’s Beatrice Boateng, Ph.D., director of evaluation and continuous improvement, is the subject of our TRI & Me feature, and we include your TRI-cited publications.

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If new biomedical discoveries are like gold, to borrow the metaphor used by Meredith Zozus, Ph.D., the prospecting days are fast coming to an end. A new associate professor in the rapidly expanding Department of Biomedical Informatics (DBMI), Zozus was explaining UAMS’ recent and forthcoming biomedical informatics strategies to benefit clinicians, biomedical researchers and graduate students.

The need for managing enormous amounts of data and meeting the NIH’s new, higher expectations for rigor and study reproducibility are helping drive UAMS’ efforts for more robust data management systems. Another factor is the increasing difficulty compared to 20 years ago for a clinical researcher to make a single discovery that improves health outcomes, Zozus said.

“Back then, finding those gold nuggets was a lot easier. You could do a large study and learn something new that changed clinical practice and improved outcomes,” she said. “But those gold nuggets have become harder to find. So, like real-life prospectors, we’re moving from panning for gold to computationally sifting through tons of data to find the nuggets.”

Zozus also noted that the NIH, through its Big Data to Knowledge (BD2K) initiative, is targeting a growing shortage in biomedical research of individuals with computational expertise, informatics and statistics, with enough understanding of the underlying biology, biochemistry or physiology to really collaborate with a biomedical scientist. The challenge is particularly acute for extremely large datasets, where different methods are needed.

To help ensure UAMS is a leader in biomedical informatics, Fred Prior, Ph.D., who chairs DBMI and leads TRI’s Comprehensive Informatics Resource Center, recently announced new – some nationally unique – education initiatives to the TRI Leadership Council. Together the initiatives cover the translational spectrum, from molecules to populations. Pending approval from the Arkansas Department of Higher Education (ADHE), and starting in fall 2017, these four tracks in different areas of Biomedical Informatics will offer certificates, master’s degrees and doctorates:

Translational Bioinformatics. This degree program is for researchers using data in cellular and molecular level studies that have a clinical target, e.g., a study of genes producing a protein that has a role in disease. The field also encompasses work with pre-clinical data as development and testing begins for new targets, compounds or devices.

Imaging Informatics. Training in Imaging Informatics, offered only a few places nationally, includes coursework in research imaging to teach the latest modalities and methods of managing and interpreting images used in research. It also includes coursework for imaging professionals, i.e., those who run a hospital’s picture, archiving and communication (PAC) system where images such as CT scans, X-rays, and MRIs are stored.

Clinical Informatics. This program is for those interested in generation, management and use of information in health care settings, i.e., clinical decision support or algorithms to predict patients who are likely to respond well to treatment. Clinical informatics is a medical subspecialty approved in 2011 by the American Board of Medical Specialties. DBMI ran its first review course this summer to help physicians sitting for the clinical informatics board exam. The review class will be offered again this summer as a free service to all physicians in Arkansas who want to sit for the exam. Other plans include a fellowship in clinical informatics.

Clinical Research Informatics. If approved by ADHE, UAMS may be the first program to offer graduate degrees in Clinical Research Informatics in the United States.

Clinical research informatics involves data for the design, conduct and reporting of clinical studies. While easily confused with clinical informatics, clinical research informatics is not research on clinical informatics; instead, it is the informatics of research, i.e., how information is used in gauging the feasibility, or in designing, conducting or reporting clinical studies. If approved by ADHE this spring, the Clinical Research Informatics track will include a master’s degree and Ph.D. as well as a professional master’s option.

All four tracks will have the option of distance learning.

DBMI and TRI will also continue the Research & Application Seminar Series, which is open to the public and offers an hour of CME credit to clinical and informatics professionals across the state for attending seminars on the latest biomedical research tools and practices.

While biomedical informatics is not new to UAMS, it is increasingly approaching the data as a science, considering its fundamental properties and how those should govern its management, Zozus said.

“As an institution we are increasingly providing collaboration, informatics expertise and data infrastructure to biomedical researchers at all scales, from the smallest to the largest of studies, so our investigators don’t have to build their own data processes,” she said. “In essence, we are building a data sluice operation.

The 2017 Health Sciences Entrepreneurship Seminar Series begins Feb. 1, with UAMS’ Amy Hester, Ph.D., R.N., director of Nursing Research and Innovation, speaking from 5 – 6 p.m. at the Reynolds Institute on Aging, Jo Ellen Ford Auditorium. 

Hester will present “Innovating in Healthcare: Idea Formation to Revenue Generation and Everything in Between.”

Hester’s research focuses on falls and injury prediction and prevention across the continuum of care. She is the inventor of multiple products and co-founded the biotechnology company HD Nursing, LLC in 2012, for which she is chief scientific officer. 

The UAMS Seminar Series this year is being offered in collaboration with the University of Alabama, Birmingham, University of Kansas Medical Center and the University of Utah – all Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) institutions. The series is sponsored by the NIGMS Systems Pharmacology and Toxicology T32 Training Program, UAMS Translational Research Institute (TRI) and UAMS BioVentures.  

UAMS’ Youzhong Yuan, M.D., Ph.D., in the Department of Pathology, was our third and final Yeti Tumbler winner in drawings  to celebrate UAMS Profiles’ recent system upgrade and first anniversary.

Kandi Stallings-Archer, M.D., won a Yeti Tumbler in our second drawing, and Jonathan Goree, M.D., was our first winner. 

Profiles is a networking tool designed to help researchers, clinicians, educators and other faculty members connect with one another through their research/clinical/academic interests. All faculty members have a Profiles page, and all are encouraged to visit the site and edit/add to their personal profile.  

UAMS saw numerous achievements in 2016, including in research. The year was highlighted by a $41.8 million NIH award to oversee a 17-site pediatric clinical trial network that will provide medically underserved and rural children access to clinical studies on the effect of environmental influences on early development. 

Read more: http://bit.ly/2hKc71W

In this video from KATV in Little Rock, a viewer of “Medicine with Moursi’” is thinking about joining the ARresearch.org volunteer participant registry, but he has a couple of questions. UAMS’ Mohammed Moursi, M.D., chief of vascular surgery, has the answers.

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If new biomedical discoveries are like gold, to borrow the metaphor used by UAMS’ Meredith Zozus, Ph.D., the prospecting days are fast coming to an end. But fear not; the November/December TRIbune newsletter features exciting new and forthcoming biomedical informatics strategies to help ensure that UAMS researchers continue to find “gold.” This issue also includes a story about a TRI-supported study led by Kristie Hadden, Ph.D., that may be unique nationally showing how her UAMS intervention is “moving the needle” through the adoption of a plain-language template. Pearl McElfish, Ph.D., MBA, is our TRI & Me feature, and we include your TRI-supported publications.

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The UAMS Translational Research Institute honored UAMS’ many Arkansas community partners Nov. 18 with its fourth annual Community Partner Celebration.

During the event at the Centre at University Park in Little Rock, Naomi Cottoms, executive director of Tri County Rural Health Network (Tri County), accepted the first Chancellor’s Community Research Partner Award on behalf of her organization.

Tri County has been a partner of the UAMS Fay W. Boozman College of Public Health since 2001. That year the college began a long-term partnership with Tri County, which established the Community Connector Program, and they have jointly presented and published findings on the cost savings generated by this community health worker program.

UAMS Chancellor Dan Rahn, M.D., the keynote speaker, applauded the work of the community partners. He also focused on the important changes in the way research is conducted with communities typically underrepresented in research.

When deciding what research is going to be conducted, he said, community partners must be involved. Not only should they be involved in deciding whether the research makes a difference in people’s lives, they should help decide whether it makes a difference in their lives according to what matters to the community.

“In picking research questions, we’ve typically begun by considering the importance of the science, and what we learned is that may not really be what matters to the people whose interests we’re here to serve,” Rahn said.

He said he hopes UAMS’ relationships with communities have matured to where they feel empowered to tell researchers the problems they want to tackle.“I thank you for being engaged with us,” he said. “I really want to challenge all of us to get this to the level where you are not just helping us with projects we decided to do, but that you’re actually bringing questions to the table that you need answers to because it’s your community, it’s your lives, and then we respond to that.”

“I thank you for being engaged with us,” he said. “I really want to challenge all of us to get this to the level where you are not just helping us with projects we decided to do, but that you’re actually bringing questions to the table that you need answers to because it’s your community, it’s your lives, and then we respond to that.”

Rahn selected Tri County for the Chancellor’s Community Research Partner Award after the list of nominees was narrowed to two by reviewers at universities outside Arkansas.

Tri County has served as the formal community partner on a grant from the National Institutes of Health National Institute for Minority Health and Health Disparities to study the role of community health workers in engaging minority community members and organizations in research.

Mary Olson, D.Min., of Tri County served as the community co-investigator and Cottoms served as chair of the community advisory board. Tri County was also the community partner on a Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) award, and Cottoms has chaired the TRI Community Advisory Board for the past three years.

The College of Public Health is collaborating on a research project with Tri County called Patients Advancing Their Health (PATH) in the Delta, which involves integrating Community Health Workers into primary care practices to help them serve the needs of their most costly and medically complex patients.

“These projects represent just some of the partnerships between Tri County and the college, and they demonstrate the critical role this organization has played at UAMS,” said Kate Stewart, M.D., M.P.H., who leads the Translational Research Institute’s Community Engagement program. “They have demonstrated the value of community engagement for students who visit the Delta to learn about their work, for researchers who partner with them in the community, and for the members of the community who have benefited from their willingness to work with UAMS.”

Five community groups were recognized as Outstanding Community Partners. They are:

• Health Impact Assessment Coalition. This coalition is examining how Arkansas’ landlord-tenant laws and the state’s lack of an implied warranty of habitability affects health through the availability of safe, affordable and healthy housing in central Little Rock. The assessment, funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts, focuses on how formerly incarcerated people are impacted by these policies. Several UAMS staff are members of the Coalition Steering Committee.
• Immerse Arkansas. This organization prepares former foster youth for adulthood. Working with UAMS, students interviewed youth who received services from Immerse Arkansas, then wrote narratives for inclusion in an awareness campaign.
• Jefferson County Emotional Wellness Taskforce. This taskforce has worked with several UAMS researchers to develop grants that focus on improving mental health outcomes among community members and improving mental health literacy within rural African-American communities. The taskforce has also collaborated with UAMS researchers to develop grants that focus on improving mental health outcomes of those who are incarcerated.
• Jericho Way. A day resource center for the homeless in Little Rock, Jericho Way has partnered with the Emergency Department Community Health Worker program at UAMS. In this program, patients in the Emergency Department receive one-on-one services from a community health worker who works with them to manage their health and social needs.Transgender Equality Network. This network serves and advocates for the transgender community and has worked to educate the public about transgender issues. It has partnered with the College of Public Health and the Arkansas Transgender Equality Coalition on a national
• Transgender Equality Network. This network serves and advocates for the transgender community and has worked to educate the public about transgender issues. It has partnered with the College of Public Health and the Arkansas Transgender Equality Coalition on a national Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute community engagement award called Transform Health Arkansas.Other nominees for the Chancellor’s Community Research Partner Award are:

Other nominees for the Chancellor’s Community Research Partner Award are:

Arkansas Community Organizations. This community-based membership organization does community organizing around issues that are important to its members, mostly low-to-moderate income communities in Central Arkansas and Jefferson County. UAMS College of Public Health faculty, staff and students have partnered with Arkansas Community Organizations in completing service learning community research projects for the previous five years through

Arkansas Community Organizations. This community-based membership organization does community organizing around issues that are important to its members, mostly low-to-moderate income communities in Central Arkansas and Jefferson County. UAMS College of Public Health faculty, staff and students have partnered with Arkansas Community Organizations in completing service learning community research projects for the previous five years through a masters- and doctoral- level course on racial and ethnic health disparities.

Arkansas Prevention Research Center Community Advisory Board. The “Dos and Don’ts of Community Engagement” workshop for researchers was developed and implemented by the Arkansas Prevention Research Center’s Community Advisory Board in partnership with faculty and staff from the College of Public Health. The early results of the workshop show that it can help build and sustain community-academic partnerships.

Arkansas Transgender Equality Coalition (ArTEC). This state-wide organization works to advance equality, justice and inclusivity for transgender Arkansans. The College of Public Health is partnering with ArTEC on a national Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute community engagement award called Transform Health Arkansas. ArTEC is leading this project to engage transgender Arkansans in identifying their most pressing health and health care issues they want to see studied.
Shiloh Baptist Church. The Rev. Johnny Smith and Shiloh Baptist Church in Pine Bluff have partnered with researchers at the UAMS colleges of Medicine and Public Health for more than six years. Smith has served as a community principal investigator on several projects in the Delta.

Shiloh Baptist Church. The Rev. Johnny Smith and Shiloh Baptist Church in Pine Bluff have partnered with researchers at the UAMS colleges of Medicine and Public Health for more than six years. Smith has served as a community principal investigator on several projects in the Delta.

View all of our celebration photos!

The Translational Research Institute (TRI) has issued its 2017 Pilot Award Program request for applications (RFA). 

This RFA seeks proposals for translational biomedical informatics approaches that examine rural health and health care issues. The awards are $50,000 maximum and have a one-year time limit. 

Note that TRI has restructured its Pilot Program to align with the priorities established by the NIH National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS). The intent is to develop novel technologies and methodologies, to test the feasibility of novel approaches, and to stimulate inter-disciplinary collaborations that test generalizable solutions to translational research problems.

In addition to biomedical informatics, future focus areas of TRI pilot awards will include: health concerns and challenges of rural and underrepresented populations; implementation science to incorporate new research findings into the health care system; and community/stakeholder-partnered research. The biannual RFA will rotate among the four emphasis areas. 

Key dates:

• Letter of Intent Due – Dec. 9, 2016
• Full applications invited – Dec. 19, 2016
• Full applications due – March 10, 2017
• Awardees announced – April 3, 2017

Latest project start/IRB approval date – June 1, 2017