College of Medicine receives nearly $50 million to advance research
Between July and September 2021, Penn State College of Medicine received 208 grants and contracts totaling $49.9 million for research. Faculty, staff and students will use the funds to investigate new therapeutic strategies for cancer, causes of and treatments for drug misuse, factors leading to chronic pain and new surgical techniques.
David Degraff, PhD
Regulation of cell intrinsic immunity in bladder cancer
Investigator: David Degraff, PhD, assistant professor of pathology and laboratory medicine and urology
Grant amount: $810,901
Awarded by: U.S. Army Medical Research and Development Command
Goal: Bladder cancer is the fourth most common malignancy in American veterans. Degraff’s prior research demonstrated that silencing the activity of a gene called FOXA1 can play a role in whether bladder cancer will respond to a certain type of therapy. In this project, the lab will further explore how tumor genetics affect receptivity to bladder cancer treatments with the goal of identifying new therapeutic targets.
Michael Dennis, PhD
Redox-sensitive activation of REDD1 in diabetic retinopathy
Investigator: Michael Dennis, PhD, associate professor of cellular and molecular physiology and ophthalmology
Grant amount: $472,818 ($1,418,454 anticipated through June 2024)
Awarded by: National Eye Institute
Goal: Diabetes can cause damage to an area of the eye called the retina and cause vision problems, leading to a condition called diabetic retinopathy. Dennis will study how a protein called REDD1 plays a role in the development of diabetic retinopathy and hopes to identify molecular targets for therapeutic intervention.
Rong Jin, MD, PhD
J147 treatment for traumatic brain injury in brain damage and long-term functional recovery
Investigator: Rong Jin, MD, PhD, assistant professor of neurosurgery
Grant amount: $445,995
Awarded by: National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke
Goal: Few treatments exist for traumatic brain injuries. Jin will use these funds to conduct preclinical testing to see if a small molecule called J147 could be used to improve health outcomes in cases of traumatic brain injury. J147 can easily cross the blood-brain barrier and is already known for its properties that positively contribute to brain health and prevention of neurological diseases.
Jennifer Kraschnewski, MD, MPH
Expanding medication assisted treatment in central Pennsylvania to address opioid use disorder
Investigator: Jennifer Kraschnewski, MD, MPH, professor and vice chair for research, Department of Medicine; professor of public health sciences and pediatrics
Grant amount: $524,235 ($2,621,179 anticipated through September 2026)
Awarded by: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Goal: Kraschnewski and team aim to decrease the number of untreated people living with and dying from opioid use disorder by increasing access to medications in underserved counties in central Pennsylvania. They will do this by supporting local clinics, care centers and health care facilities through collaboration between the Pennsylvania Coordinated Medication-Assisted Treatment program, a hub-and-spoke network of health care providers, and Project ECHO at Penn State College of Medicine. The goal of this collaboration is to increase provider knowledge and capacity to serve more patients across the region.
Gregory Lewis, MS, PhD
Biomedical engineering design: integrating simulation, clinical immersion and regulatory training
Investigator: Gregory Lewis, MS, PhD, associate professor of orthopaedics and rehabilitation
Grant amount: $41,591 ($205,992 anticipated through June 2026)
Awarded by: National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering
Goal: Lewis and co-principal investigator Daniel Hayes will use the funds to establish a training program for undergraduates in biomedical engineering programs, including under-represented students and women, to learn how devices are developed. Participants will take courses, attend a workshop at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and join a summer clinical immersion experience at the College of Medicine where they will work on a team-based project on a selected biomedical device.
Benjamin Levi, MD, PhD
iLookOut for Child Abuse: microlearning to improve knowledge retention
Investigator: Benjamin Levi, MD, PhD, professor of humanities and pediatrics
Grant amount: $694,729 ($4,768,797 anticipated through August 2022)
Awarded by: Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
Goal: Levi will lead a randomized, controlled trial to study how interactive, gamified micro-learning promotes knowledge retention and fosters behavior change with regard to child abuse and its reporting, as well as prevention. After completing the online iLookOut for Child Abuse core training, early childhood professionals will engage in brief, gamified micro-learning exercises that they can complete on their smart phones or computers that will reinforce skills and knowledge learned in training.
Guohong Li, MD, PhD
Novel targets and therapeutic interventions against cerebral ischemia-reperfusion injury
Investigator: Guohong Li, MD, PhD, professor of neurosurgery
Grant amount: $3,000,257 anticipated through May 2026
Awarded by: National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke
Goal: Patients with acute ischemic stroke may experience an ischemia-reperfusion injury, where tissues that previously had a lack of blood due to the stroke experience cell dysfunction and death as a result of restored blood flow. Li plans to do preclinical studies to determine if a new therapy could be used as a treatment for this condition in older populations at high risk for stroke.
Dajiang Liu, PhD, MA
Methods to maximize the utility of common fund functional genomic data in multi-ethnic genetic studies
Investigator: Dajiang Liu, PhD, MA, associate professor of public health sciences, biochemistry and molecular biology
Grant amount: $335,590
Awarded by: National Institutes of Health Office of the Director
Goal: Smoking and drinking are major risk factors for a variety of human diseases. Liu, his lab and co-investigator Bibo Jiang have made progress in identifying the genetic bases of smoking and drinking addiction in samples of European ancestry. Using statistical genetic and machine learning approaches, Liu plans to integrate 3D genome and epigenetic data with samples of non-European populations to empower genetic discovery to reflect diverse human populations.
Jennifer Nyland, PhD
Acute to chronic pain signatures in traumatic injury
Investigator: Jennifer Nyland, PhD, assistant professor of neural and behavioral sciences
Grant amount: $1,450,288
Awarded by: U.S. Army Medical Research and Development Command
Goal: Chest traumas represents 10 to 15% of all traumas, and 85% of those patients have suffered rib fractures. These patients will often complain of persistent pain, which is present even several months after the injury. No available methods exist to predict which patients will develop persistent pain after injury and which patients will feel less persistent pain. Nyland aims to identify and better understand all factors which can lead to or protect from chronic pain in patients after this type of injury in order to minimize the risk of persistent pain, decrease pain-related disability and return patients more quickly to active life and work.
Inan Olmez, MD
Diacylglycerol kinase alpha promotes brain metastasis through regulating the biogenesis of extracellular vesicles
Investigator: Inan Olmez, MD, associate professor of neurosurgery
Grant amount: $729,810
Awarded by: U.S. Army Medical Research and Development Command
Goal: Olmez will study how a specific biological pathway contributes to the ability of cancer cells to spread to the brain from other areas and develop resistance to therapies. A better understanding of this process could lead to the identification and development of new therapeutic targets for cancers.
Dino Ravnic, DO, MPH, MSc
Mechanisms and application of micropunctured induced angiogenesis for the rapid perfusion of intraoperative bioprinted flaps
Investigator: Dino Ravnic, DO, MPH, MSc, associate professor of surgery
Grant amount: $693,843
Awarded by: National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute
Goal: Advances in surgical research have led to the development of bioprinted replacement grafts or tissues. Little knowledge exists about how these grafts become incorporated with existing tissues through vascularization, or blood flow. Ravnic intends to develop surgical techniques that help these artificial grafts become more easily incorporated, or vascularized, with existing patient tissues.
Steven Schiff, MD, PhD
Neurocognitive outcomes and changes in brain and CSF volume after treatment of post-infectious hydrocephalus in Ugandan infants by shunting or ETV/CPC: a randomized prospective trial
Investigator: Steven Schiff, MD, PhD, Brush Chair Professor of Engineering; professor of neurosurgery, engineering science and mechanics
Grant amount: $555,199 ($2,505,953 anticipated through June 2026)
Awarded by: Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
Goal: Hydrocephalus, a swelling of the brain due to accumulated fluid, is a major public health threat to infants throughout the developing world. Schiff and colleagues are evaluating two different approaches for treating the condition — insertion of a shunt or endoscopic surgery — as a randomized controlled clinical trial. The researchers will evaluate long term outcomes in patients who have already had these procedures to see whether endoscopic treatment is a more sustainable option for infants in the developing world. A key scientific aspect of their work is the use of brain volumes to gauge the effectiveness of treatment on the growing brain and using low-field MRI technology to follow such brain growth.
Other awards
- See grant highlights from previous months here.
- See details on grants awarded to the College of Medicine from 2017 to present here.
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