September 25, 2017

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In This Week's Update:

CBI Seminar Series: Digital Biomarkers
Annual Lecture on Biomedical Research Ethics
CTSI Blog Story: Studying Healthcare as a Network: Does the Analysis Match the Question?
CTSI Analytics Colloquium: Machine Learning
Ever Better Mentoring: Hybrid Online Course for UR Faculty
Oral Health Disparities and Access to Dental Care
Request for Applications to Support Health Sciences Research Using High Performance Computational Resources
Study: Medical School Debt on the Rise
Office for Inclusion and Culture Development Diversity Seminar Series
Annual HIV/AIDS Symposium
Next Generation Researchers Initiative
NCATS Announces Call for Proposals for Pfizer’s Centers for Therapeutic Innovation Program
Calendar of Events
Funding Opportunities

CBI Seminar Series: Digital Biomarkers

Presented by: Ray Dorsey, MD, David M. Levy Professor of Neurology and Director, Center for Health & Technology (CHeT)

Mobile technologies including smartphones and wearable sensors have the potential to provide objective, frequent, sensitive assessments of health. This seminar will highlight these applications as they apply to Parkinson's disease and other conditions. Lunch will be provided.

Date: Tuesday, September 26^th
Time: 12:00 – 1:00 pm
Location: URMC, Lower Adolph Auditorium (1-7619)

Annual Lecture on
Biomedical Research Ethics

Do New Tools Need New Ethics? The Challenge of Governance for Gene Editing in Humans, presented by Jeffrey Kahn, PhD, MPH, of the Berman Institute of Bioethics at Johns Hopkins University.

The NIH requires that all graduate students and postdoctoral appointees receive continued instruction on the responsible conduct of research (RCR) throughout their training. As part of ongoing efforts to satisfy this requirement, the University of Rochester sponsors periodic RCR lectures and workshops. In addition to completing the Ethics and Professional Integrity in Research Course (IND501/506), all graduate students and postdoctoral appointees are required to attend this special lecture as a part of ongoing efforts for continued RCR instruction.

Date: Wednesday, September 27^th
Time: 2:00 – 3:00 pm
Location: Class of ’62 Auditorium (G-9425)

Reception with refreshments to follow in Natapow Conference Room (1-9545).

Studying Healthcare as a Network:
Does the Analysis Match the Question?

In an effort to improve healthcare, researchers have begun to study healthcare systems like they would telecommunications or computer networks. Using network science, researchers can uncover patterns of opioid over-prescription or predict how a virus outbreak might overtax a healthcare network.

However, a study led by Martin Zand, M.D., Ph.D., co-director of the UR CTSI and professor of Nephrology and Public Health Sciences at URMC, shows that the type of algorithms used to make these discoveries could provide misleading results, impacting healthcare delivery and policy.

Read the entire article on the CTSI Stories Blog.

CTSI Analytics Colloquium

Presenters will discuss the historical roots of machine learning at the first CTSI Analytics Colloquium, sponsored by the CTSI Informatics Analytics Cluster. All faculty, staff, and students are welcome to attend.

Anthony Almudevar, PhD, Associate Professor of Biostatistics and Computational Biology, University of Rochester, will speak on The Historical Foundations of Machine Learning. Wenyao Xu, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science & Engineering, SUNY Buffalo, will discuss Algorithm and Hardware Evolution in Machine Learning.

Lunch is provided.

Date: Tuesday, November 7th
Time: 12:00 – 1:00 pm
Location: URMC, Lower Adolph Auditorium (1-7619)

Ever Better Mentoring:
Hybrid Online Course for UR Faculty

The CTSI, in conjunction with the Office of Faculty Development and Diversity, announce the hybrid online and face-to-face mentoring course, Ever Better Mentoring. The course is designed to both reinforce and introduce common issues faced by mentors of research trainees and students. Ever Better Mentoring includes a Blackboard™ component with videos and case-based scenarios, complemented by an in-person workshop to encourage exchange of best practices and persistent challenges. Both seasoned and inexperienced mentors have found the course valuable.

The course is open to all University of Rochester faculty; register through Blackboard. For questions please contact Oksana Babiy at Oksana_Babiy@urmc.rochester.edu.

Oral Health Disparities and
Access to Dental Care

Presented by: Sangeeta Gajendra, DDS, MPH, MS, Associate Professor, Dentistry; Associate Professor, Center for Community Health; Clinical Chief, Eastman Institute of Oral Health (EIOH) Community Dentistry, University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry

Oral health disparities are profound in the United States. Despite improvements in some oral health status indicators, the burden of disease is not evenly distributed across all segments of societies. Disparities have been observed in oral health outcomes by gender, race or ethnicity, education, income, disability, geographic location, and sexual orientation. Social and economic factors can contribute to these differences. Improving access to oral health care is a critical and necessary step to improving oral health outcomes and in reducing disparities.

To register for this workshop, please email inclusion@urmc.rochester.edu.

Date: Wednesday, October 18th
Time: 12:30 – 1:30 pm
Location: Northeastern Room (1-9525/1-9535)

Request for Applications to Support Health Sciences Research Using High Performance Computational Resources

Funds are available to support laboratory staff for short-term, early-phase work necessary to allow investigators to translate their ideas into computer code or models, and to get new biocomputational/health-related scientific projects up-and-running in the following areas:

Modeling Complex Biological Systems and Integration of Big Data
Biomedical Imaging
Molecular and Fluid Dynamics
Biomedical Applications of Integrated Photonics
Biomedical Informatics
Data analysis and visualization

Initial salary support will be permitted for periods up to 12 months, including academic semesters and summer terms. All laboratory research staff including students, technicians, and fellows are eligible.

To receive more information regarding the RFA, contact Ben Miller at benjamin_miller@urmc.rochester.edu. To view the Health Sciences Center for Computational Innovation web page, click here.

Applications are due Tuesday, October 31, 2017.

Study: Medical School Debt on the Rise

Medical school debt is on the rise according to a study in JAMA Internal Medicine authored, in part, by former KL2 scholar, Ray Dorsey, M.D., the David M Levy Professor of Neurology at the University of Rochester Medical Center. The study, which was also authored by URMC Neurology Resident Benjamin George, M.D., M.P.H., and UR medical student Justin Grishkan, reported that an average medical student will owe almost $190,000 upon completing their degree. At the same time, the number of students paying their own way and graduating debt-free has increased, suggesting that medical school debt is becoming more concentrated among those who do not come from wealthy backgrounds.

Coincidentally, rising medical school debt has been cited by the NIH as one of the challenges keeping physicians from pursuing research careers.

Read more on the Research@URMC blog.

Office for Inclusion and Culture Development Diversity Seminar Series

The Susan B. Anthony Center, the Office for Faculty Development and Diversity, the Office of the Vice Dean for Research at the School of Medicine and Dentistry, and the Textbook and Academic Authors Association(taaonline.net) are sponsoring two seminars presented by Tara Gray, PhD.

Publish & Flourish: Become a Prolific Scholar
Increase your productivity by a factor of three. Write clearer, better organized, and more compelling prose. Many scholarly writers are educated at the School of Hard Knocks, but it’s not the only school or even the best. Much is known about how to become a better, more prolific scholar, and anybody can do this.

Date: Monday, October 23rd
Time: 9:00 am – 12:00 pm
Location: URMC, Whipple Auditorium (Room 2-6424)

Ten Ways to Manage Your Time
University professors are pulled in many directions at once, facing publication deadlines, piles of student papers, committee obligations, and that ever-growing list of unanswered emails. In all of this clutter of activity, we might begin to wonder: are we making the best use of our time? Clearly, we need to develop strategies and concrete practices to open up some "space" in our lives in which we can reflect, consider the long term, and function more productively in our daily lives.

Date: Monday, October 23rd
Time: 1:45 – 3:45 pm
Location: URMC, Whipple Auditorium (Room 2-6424)

To RSVP for one or both seminars, click here.
Registration deadline: October 6th

Annual HIV/AIDS Symposium

Join the Center for AIDS Research for the ninth annual HIV/AIDS Scientific Symposium in recognition of World AIDS Day.

Keynote presentations will include Michael Blank, PhD, Professor of Psychiatry, HIV Prevention Research Division at the University of Pennsylvania and Kamel Khalili, PhD, Professor and Chair, Department of Neuroscience and Director, Center for Neurovirology at Temple University.

A poster session will be held from 11:00 am to 12:30 pm in Flaum Atrium.

For additional information, contact Laura Enders.

Date: Friday, December 1st
Time: 10:00 am – 2:00 pm
Location: URMC, Class of ’62 Auditorium (G-9425)

Next Generation Researchers Initiative

Earlier this year, NIH announced the launch of the Next Generation Researchers Initiative (NGRI), which will allocate approximately $210 million in fiscal year (FY) 2017 and an additional $210 million each year for four years to support additional meritorious early-stage and mid-career investigators. Information on the initiative is available here.

On August 31, 2017 NIH released a policy supporting the NGRI that defines the categories of researchers eligible for the funding pool. A blog post from NIH Director of Extramural Research Mike Lauer regarding this policy can be found here.

Click here to view a list of smaller awards and grants that maintain Early Stage Investigator status.

NCATS Announces Call for Proposals
for Pfizer’s Centers for Therapeutic
Innovation Program

NCATS announces an opportunity for National Institutes of Health intramural researchers to submit proposals to collaborate with Pfizer’s Centers for Therapeutic Innovation (CTI). Pfizer’s CTI program pairs NIH researchers with Pfizer resources to pursue scientific and medical advances through joint therapeutic development. The CTI model is the first NIH-wide biologics initiative with a pharmaceutical partner that NCATS coordinates on behalf of all NIH intramural researchers.

Goals include identifying biologic compounds with activity in a pathway or target of interest to both an NIH intramural researcher and to Pfizer, and moving the compounds into the clinic to test them.

Pre- proposals are due to the investigator’s NIH Institute or Center’s technology transfer office by Oct. 13, 2017. Technology transfer staff must submit the pre-proposals by Oct. 20, 2017, via the Pfizer CTI submission portal at https://proposalportal.pfizercti.com/.

Find out how to apply.

See frequently asked questions.