This list of funding opportunities was updated Sept. 9 and includes a tab with archived funding opportunities that remain open.

Camille Hart, M.P.H., was recently named TRI’s Community Engagement program manager and Nicola Spencer was named Community Engagement program coordinator. Hart received her Master of Public Health degree at Tulane University in May and has extensive experience with community engagement and has worked on several research projects.

Prior to graduate school she worked in the Office of Community-Based Public Health in the UAMS College of Public Health writing a newsletter and engaging students in community-based projects. She has several years of experience on a wide range of community initiatives. Hart is replacing Nakita Lovelady, M.P.H., who is pursuing her doctorate in Health Promotion and Prevention Research at the UAMS College of Public Health.

Spencer’s work will have a special emphasis on a Population Health project in central Arkansas, helping recruit community sites and coordinating work with students. She will also help with meeting coordination and logistics as well as managing the Community Engagement program’s equipment library.

Alison Oliveto, Ph.D., was recently named director of TRI’s Translational Research Services Center (TRSC).

Oliveto is a tenured professor in the Center for Addiction Research and vice chair for Research in the Department of Psychiatry where she has been faculty since 2004. Besides having a long history of NIH funding, service on NIH study sections, and service on UAMS research-related committees, she has had several administrative leadership roles during her tenure at Yale University as well as at UAMS to facilitate the research enterprise. Oliveto is a strong advocate for investigators and has a contagious enthusiasm for facilitating translational research at UAMS.

Jean McSweeney, Ph.D., will remain as the co-director of TRSC. Tom Wells, M.D., will remain in the TRSC with his primary responsibilities being 1) oversight budget development and 2) Medical Director of the Clinical Research Services Core (CRSC). Paula Roberson, Ph.D., will continue to provide oversight of the biostatistics services within the TRSC.

To help TRI better manage research-related requests and inquiries, the new Translational Research Services Center has its own email address: TRIservices@uams.edu. Overseen by Amy Jo Jenkins, M.S., C.C.R.P., C.C.R.C., C.C.R.A., this email portal will help TRI streamline some of the workflow and ensure that researchers get the help they need when they need it.

As of July 1, the Research Support Center (RSC) was officially integrated into TRI as the Translational Research Services Center, which includes all of the services of the RSC as well as other TRI services (Biostats, Health Data Unit, Clinical Research Services Core, etc.)

For general TRI inquiries not related to resources or services, please continue to use the main TRI email address: TRI@uams.edu.

The Translational Research Institute (TRI) will host its second annual UAMS Community Partner Celebration on Dec. 4. This celebration honors the outstanding community partners that have helped make our various endeavors possible, including research, education, training and services.

Join us in celebrating the important work we do together by submitting up to three outstanding Community-Based Organizations and/or one Community Advisory Board that have provided invaluable expertise, guidance, and/or support to you on various projects. Learn more and view the submission form. The deadline for submissions is 5 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 23.

Beatrice Boateng, Ph.D., an associate professor and director of the Office of Education in the Department of Pediatrics, has been named director of TRI’s Evaluation Program. As director, she will lead the tracking of TRI program activities and their progress.

Boateng, also an adjunct at the UAMS Office of Global Health, is a member of several national pediatrics committees and collaboratives, including the Pediatrics Milestones Assessment Collaborative (PMAC), which was created this year by the American Board of Pediatrics (ABP), the Association of Pediatric Program Directors (APPD), and the National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME).

Since joining UAMS in 2007, Boateng has served on a number of education related task forces and committees in the College of Medicine. She has earned numerous awards, including Educator of the Year in 2010 and 2012 in the Department of Pediatrics, the Dean’s Educational Incentive Award in 2012 and 2013, and the 2013 UAMS Educational Technology Excellence Award.

The Translational Research Institute is offering assistance to researchers through a series of TRI Research Forums. The forums, which will include a panel of research experts, are designed to help those who may have a good research idea but aren’t sure how to proceed and those who may need assistance with grant applications. For more information and to request a forum, email TRIServices@uams.edu or call Amy Jo Jenkins, 501-686-5939.

TRI Research Forums will convene twice monthly. Forum requests must be submitted three weeks prior to the forum date. Those dates are: July 28, 9 – 11 a.m.; Aug. 14, 8:30 – 10:30 a.m.; Aug. 25, 9 – 11 a.m. View a flyer.

The UAMS Translational Research Institute and the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville (UAF) on Wednesday announced a research pilot program that targets telehealth. The one-year pilot awards are up to $15,000, with an additional $5,000 for projects that include a UAF collaborator. Letters of Intent are due by 5 p.m., July 7, 2014.

Download the Request for Applications.

Telehealth uses two-way interactive video and imaging devices to deliver specialized medical services, from emergency stroke treatment to the care of premature infants. Arkansas ranks second nationally in telehealth availability, and it has the lowest ratio of rural residents to telehealth sites, according to the National Telehealth Resource Centers Report.

UAMS has more than 40 pioneering clinical telehealth programs that utilize the state’s infrastructure, but many of the programs lack the data needed to promote broader adoption, said Laura James, M.D., director of the UAMS Translational Research Institute.

“We’re excited to offer this targeted pilot program because we believe Arkansas has the capacity to develop rigorously tested, novel models of health care delivery through telehealth,” James said. “We hope that these pilot grants will become the catalyst for larger, multi-institutional studies.”

The one-year Translational Research Institute Pilot Research Awards will fund as many as four telehealth projects. The institutions’ leaders said the collaborative funding initiative is designed to foster research between physicians engaged in telehealth programs and researchers.

“We expect to see research that tests the clinical outcomes, cost effectiveness and comparative effectiveness of these programs so that they can be more broadly adopted to meet the health care needs of Arkansans,” said Cynthia L. Sagers, Ph.D., associate vice provost for Research and Economic Development at UAF. “Collaborations between UAMS and UAF enhance our research capacity, our reputation and our service to the state.”

Every county in Arkansas has at least one telehealth site and most counties have several. All UAMS Regional Centers, most of the state’s hospitals, Federally Qualified Health Centers, and county health departments are linked through telehealth. Arkansas has 945 telehealth endpoints, 421 anchor health care institutions, and 495 interactive video units.

The UAMS Translational Research Institute’s mission is to help accelerate research that will improve the health and health care of people in Arkansas and across the country. TRI is one of 62 recipients of a National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA).

Are you interested in participating in TRI’s telehealth-focused pilot awards program (Letter of Intent due July 7, 2014)? The UAMS Center for Distance Health research team can help with your telehealth research by:

Providing expertise on technical requirements and existing resources for your telehealth idea
Connecting you with other telehealth researchers and experts to discuss their telehealth programs
Collaborating to disseminate findings to the scientific community through presentations and publications
Contact telemedicine@uams.edu with questions.

Download the Request for Applications for the TRI telehealth-focused pilot awards program.

Nancy Rusch, Ph.D., has been named director of the Translational Research Institute’s (TRI) Education & Career Development Program. Rusch chairs the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology in the College of Medicine. Rusch has mentored medical and graduate students, research and clinical fellows, and junior faculty for more than 25 years, and received several mentoring and teaching awards at UAMS. Graduate School Dean Bobby McGehee, Ph.D., will assist Rusch.

Mary Aitken, M.D., M.P.H., has been named director of TRI’s KL2 Career Development Awards Program. Aitken is a professor in the Department of Pediatrics and director of the Center for Applied Research and Evaluation. Jonathan Dranoff, M.D., chief of the Division of Gastroenterology, will assist with the KL2 program. Aitken and Dranoff, both clinician scientists, will work together to further develop the KL2 program, which seeks to support the career development of promising clinical and basic translational researchers across UAMS.