This list of funding opportunities was updated on May 15 and includes a tab with archived funding opportunities that remain open. It is compiled and updated every two weeks by the Division of Pharmaceutical Evaluation and Policy in the College of Pharmacy.
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Terabytes of Secure Space Available for Research
UAMS IT has 5.7 terabytes of space available to faculty and staff who need data storage for research-related materials. The space is available at no charge and provides security and data protection with daily automated backup. It is available for MS Office or similar (text, etc.), Adobe files, SPSS or SAS files, images, database files and others.
To make your request, use the self-service website http://itss.uams.edu, or email TechSupportCenter@uams.edu.
Read more here about how to make your request.
TRI-Supported Researcher’s HPV Vaccine Shows Promise in Early Trial
May 12, 2014 | A potential breakthrough HPV (human papillomavirus) vaccine for women who already have HPV appears to have passed its first major test for Mayumi Nakagawa, M.D., Ph.D., at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS).
The unpublished results of an ongoing Phase I clinical trial are showing “a promising clinical response” to the vaccine and indicate that it is safe, said Nakagawa, associate professor of pathology in the UAMS College of Medicine.
HPV vaccines on the market today are used for preventing HPV only in women who have never had the virus. There is no vaccine for women already infected with HPV.
Nakagawa’s research is funded by a five-year grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). She has also received pilot funding and other support from the UAMS Translational Research Institute, which is a recipient of a NIH National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) Clinical and Translational Sciences Award (CTSA).
Nakagawa will present the results of the first two doses involving 12 women at the 29th International Papillomavirus Conference in August. Recruitment of research participants will continue through 2014, and the Phase I study will conclude in 2015. Preparations toward the Phase II trial are under way, and will mainly examine the vaccine’s effectiveness.
HPV, a sexually transmitted virus, is associated primarily with cervical cancer, the fourth-most common cancer in women worldwide. Cervical cancer is almost always caused by HPV, which also causes anal, oropharyngeal, penile, vaginal and vulvar cancers. It is estimated to be responsible for 5.2 percent of cancer cases in the world.
Nakagawa’s vaccine could benefit women with existing infections and precancerous lesions, and new research indicates that it could significantly reduce the incidence of preterm births. It would do so by giving women an alternative to surgical treatment for HPV-related precancerous lesions such as high-grade squamous epithelial lesions (HSIL). Surgery, Nakagawa notes, was recently found to have the unintended side effect of increasing the incidence of preterm delivery, from 4.4 to 8.9 percent. Therefore, for women who still plan to have children, a therapeutic vaccine such as the one being developed by Nakagawa’s group is likely to become the first line of therapy when it is approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
The vaccine is the culmination of 20 years of research for Nakagawa. HPV has two cancer-causing proteins, and her group found that women who can mount immune responses to one of them called E6 had a much better outcome. Her biggest break came while studying wart treatments, when she learned that a naturally occurring yeast in the body, Candida, had an anti-HPV effect.
Nakagawa’s vaccine, which consists of synthetically made E6 and Candida, would also benefit women in developing regions of the world where surgical expertise may not be available.
“It’s very exciting because it will extend the number of women who can be helped, especially those in low resource areas where HPV disease burden is greatest,” she said.
TRI Pilot Award, Discovery Help UAMS Researcher Land $1.83 Million NCI Grant
A surprise discovery that could lead to new treatments for herpes viruses that infect more than 90 percent of the world’s adult population has led to a $1.8 million grant to the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
UAMS researcher Craig Forrest, Ph.D., found that a certain protein may suppress the herpes virus and possibly several cancers that are caused by related herpes viruses.
“This protein really appears to put the brakes on the virus from the start,” said Forrest, an assistant professor in the UAMS College of Medicine’s Department of Microbiology and Immunology.
Forrest’s early research was funded by the Arkansas Biosciences Institute, supported by Arkansas’ share of a national tobacco industry settlement, and the NIH-funded Center of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) at UAMS, and a pilot study funded by the UAMS Translational Research Institute.
“We got some very unique data from the pilot study that led us to test the function of p53 in chronic herpes virus infection,” Forrest said. “We found that the p53 protein is restricting the virus from establishing a chronic infection. If you deleted p53 from the mouse genome, you got a really big increase in the number of infected cells.”
The five-year NCI grant will allow Forrest and collaborating researchers to use innovative genetics techniques to manipulate the herpes virus and its genes as they test the protein (p53), which is known for suppressing cancer.
He hopes that a more complete understanding of the protein’s role in restricting the virus will someday lead to new treatments. While most people have a natural resistance to cancers caused by the herpes virus, treatments could be lifesaving for those with weakened immune systems, including organ transplant patients, HIV/AIDS patients, and cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy.
“For people who have compromised immune systems, herpes viruses like the Epstein-Barr virus have a nasty habit of coming back as different diseases like lymphoma and other cancers,” Forrest said.
The Epstein-Barr virus, which is in the family of herpes viruses that Forrest is studying, infects more than 90 percent of the adult population, but most people will never develop a cancer caused by the virus.
“We have a technique by which we can allow the virus to set up shop and then knock out viral genes,” he said. “We propose doing the same thing with the p53 protein. We can delete p53 and then ask what happens in terms of the chronic viral infection: Do you increase or decrease viral loads? Do you increase cancer incidence? We predict that you would, but we don’t know for sure.”
Forrest, a Jonesboro native, joined UAMS in 2009 after completing postdoctoral research at Emory University in Atlanta. His discovery of the important role of the p53 protein was made while testing various signaling proteins in the genomes of mice.
Forrest’s grant application to the NCI earned a rare perfect score of 10 from reviewers, who anticipate that his research “may reveal novel therapeutic targets,” and concluded, “In sum, there is considerable enthusiasm for the talented new investigator (Forrest) and the proposed work ….”
“It was exciting to see the reviewers’ scores, and much of the credit goes to some key collaborating researchers at UAMS and my hard-working lab group,” Forrest said. “They are directly responsible for the preliminary data that made the grant successful.”
TRI, UAF Announce Telehealth Pilot Program
TRI and the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville on Wednesday announced they are offering telehealth research pilot grants of up to $15,000, with an additional $5,000 for projects that include a UAF collaborator. For more information and to download the Request for Applications (RFA):
Download RFA.
TRI Issues Pilot Award Request for Applications
The Translational Research Institute (TRI) today issued a request for applications for its 2014 pilot awards program. Awards are $50,000 maximum and have a 1-year time limit. The letter of intent is due June 2, and full applications are due Aug. 4, 2014. New this year is a requirement for a letter of approval from the IRB or IACUC with the full application. Learn more here.
Contact: Kelly Bulloch, kwbulloch@uams.edu, 501.686.5417.
MacMillan-Crow Named Director of TRI Pilot Program
Lee Ann MacMillan-Crow, Ph.D., a professor in the Department of Pharmacology/Toxicology, has been named director of TRI’s Novel Methodologies and Pilot Studies Program.
As director, MacMillan-Crow will play a key role in the promotion of translational research through the administration of TRI’s annual pilot funding program. TRI funds translational research at all levels, from basic science to clinical trials of new therapeutics, and community-based interventions. The program has awarded $3.6 million to UAMS researchers over the last five years.
MacMillan-Crow is program director of the Interdisciplinary Toxicology PhD Program and a standing member on the Surgery, Anesthesiology, and Trauma Study Section at NIH. Her laboratory has been funded by the NIH since 2001 and has a long-term interest in oxidant generation and mitochondrial damage during renal ischemia/reperfusion, as it relates to transplantation injury.
In addition, her research is examining the therapeutic potential of several agents to block renal mitochondrial injury during warm and cold ischemia, using rat, porcine, and a human model of transplantation. This research has led to a Use Patent and pending Phase II Small Business Grant from NIH. Another recent area of study in collaboration with Philip Mayeux, Ph.D., supported by an NIH RO1 grant, is related to the role that mitochondrial superoxide has on mitochondrial and renal damage during sepsis.
MacMillan-Crow earned her doctorate from the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 1994 and moved to UAMS in 2003. She has served as primary mentor to 10 graduate students and served on 18 dissertation committees.
June 2 is Due Date for TRI Funding Opportunities
Letters of intent for TRI’s 2014 Pilot Award Program and applications for the 2014 KL2 Career Development Awards are both due June 2.
Pilot Awards
The pilot awards are $50,000 maximum and have a 1-year time limit. Full applications are due Aug. 4, 2014. New this year is a requirement for a letter of approval from the IRB or IACUC with the full application. Learn more here. Contact: Kelly Bulloch, kwbulloch@uams.edu, 501.686.5417.
KL2 Awards
Benefits of the two-year KL2 Award program for UAMS junior investigators include:
Up to $52,000 each year for salary support
Up to $25,000 each year in research funds
Travel and graduate-level tuition support
Eligible candidates are those with professional doctorates committed to academic careers in translational research. View details of the program. Download TRI’s 2014 Request for Applications. Contact: behudson@uams.edu.
NCATS Releases First Annual Report
Today, the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) released its first annual report, available on the NCATS website. NCATS administers the Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) program, whose funding supports the work of UAMS’ Translational Research Institute (TRI).
The NCATS report highlights major milestones and achievements during 2012 and 2013. It also showcases how NCATS’ innovative programs, initiatives and collaborations are helping to advance translational sciences for the broader research community.
“Every NCATS project is designed to address what I call the 3Ds: develop new approaches, technologies, resources and models; demonstrate their usefulness; and proactively disseminate the data, analysis and methodologies so that other scientists can implement them,” said NCATS Director Christopher P. Austin, M.D. “Though NCATS is still relatively new, early successes showcase how our distinctive approaches can help solve some of the most challenging problems in translational sciences.”
Read the NCATS Annual Report.
TRI PILOT FUNDING ANNOUNCEMENT
May 1 – TRI Request for Applications Will Be Released
June 2 – Letter of Intent Due
June 16 – Full Applications Invited
August 4 – Full Applications Due
Awards are $50,000 maximum with a 1-year time limit.
New for 2014
IRB or IACUC approval letter required with full application
Letter of intent and application instructions will be available May 1.
Please contact Kelly Bulloch at 501.686.5417 or KWBulloch@uams.edu.