The Department of Pathology is excited to announce the award of department-funded Pilot/Feasibility Clinical Research grants to eight of our faculty for 2023. They are:
2023 Clinical Research Pilot Grant Awardees and grant titles:
Sameer Al Diffalha, M.D., Associate Professor, Anatomic Pathology - Differential gene expression to delineate racial disparity as a risk factor of Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma (PDAC).Co investigators: Darshan Chandraskehakar, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Genomic Diagnostics & Bioinformatics; Prachi Bajpa
Paul Benson, M.D., Associate Professor, Anatomic Pathology - Pre-pandemic SARS Co-V2 (COVID-19( Autopsy Variant Determination and Correlation with Autopsy Pathology. Co-investigators: Sixto Leal, M.D., Ph.D., Associate Professor, Laboaratory Medicine, Rajeshwari Challappan
Blake "Eason" Hildreth, D.M.V., Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Molecular & Cellular Pathology - Ealuation of the Role of PU.1 in clear cell renal cell carcinoma progression. Co-investigators: Cristina Magi-Galluzzi, M.D., Ph.D., Division Director, Anatomic Pathology, Sunil Sudarshan, Michael Hallett
Chirag Patel, M.D., Assistant Profesor, Anatomic Pathology - Elucidation of an immunohistochemical signature of aggressive phenotypes of stage II colorectal cancer. Co-investigators: Sameer Al Diffalha, M.D., Associate Professor; Falone Amoa, M.D.
Jianhua Zhang, Ph.D., Professor, Molecular & Cellular Pathology - Mitochondrial function in different regions of Alzheimer's disease brains and correlation with neuroinflammation, plaque and tangle pathology. Co-investigators: Victor Darley-Usmar, Ph.D., Professor, Senior Associate Dean of Research, Compliance and Administration, Rati Chkheidze, M.D., Assistant Professor, Neuropathology
Aishwarya Ravindran, M.D., Assistant Professor, Laboratory Medicine - Phenotypic Characterizatio of Rosai-Dorfman Disease (RDD). Co-investigator: Isam-Eldin Eltoum, Ph.D., Professor, Laboratory Medicine.
Karen Scott, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Laboratory Medicine - Development of a Quantative Comprehensive Method for the Detection of Xylazine andn Associated Opiods and Illicit Drugs in Postmortem and Clinical Samples. Co-investigators - Daniel Dye, M.D., Associate Professor, Forensics, Andrew Edwards, William Rushton
Silvio Litovsky, M.D., Professor, Anatomic Pathology - Possible heterogeneity in the immune cellular composition of endocardial Quilty lesions. Co-investigator: Sarah Anderson, M.D.
The Department launched its inaugural Pilot Grant Awards Program in 2018 to support clinical and translational research. The program, spearheaded by Rakesh Patel, Ph.D., vice chair for research and Professor, Molecular & Cellular Pathology, was inspired in part by feedback provided at an annual department-wide faculty retreat. This year's pilot awards program was spearheaded by Upender Manne, Ph.D., Professor, Anatomic Pathology, along with Sooryanarayana Varambally, Ph.D., Professor, Molecular & Cellular Pathology, and Rakesh Patel.
The Clinical Research Pilot Awards are designed to provide seed support to facilitate and enhance Translational Research programs and scholarly activity across the Department. Projects in the early stages of planning that will advance our academic, scholarly and research missions were especially welcome. Examples of anticipated use of funds included: supporting collection of data to be used in conference presentations, peer-reviewed publications and extramural grant applications.