Dear Colleagues,
We in the scientific community are in a unique position to help address racial bias and discrimination's effect on health and have a responsibility to ensure that our work promotes equality for those who have been historically underrepresented, overlooked, or worse, silenced. In support of the excellent work that has already been taking place in our department to address health disparities, in this newsletter we begin highlighting a few researchers and the important work they are doing to address the gaps in health outcomes. This is a small representation of the ongoing commitment of our researchers to these efforts and we will share more in future newsletters.
In addition to this spotlight, you will find more COVID-19-related resources and updates along with the regularly featured awards section.
Sincerely,
Diane and David
Diane Havlir, MD, Associate Chair for Clinical Research
David Erle, MD, Associate Chair for Biomedical Research
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Health Disparities and Research
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 Race & Peer Review - a blog written by Noni Byrnes, discussing how the NIH Center for Scientific Review has initiated a number of efforts to mitigate bias, both at the individual and systemic levels. Click here to read about what they are doing to tackle this serious problem.
To subscribe to CSR's Review Matters Blog, click on the button below.
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 Judy Tan, PhD, Assistant Professor in the Division of Prevention Science at UCSF Health, focuses on health disparities among sexual and gender minority people of color. Her R01 study aims to develop mobile health capabilities that target and leverage dyadic factors (e.g., couple’s resilience) to enhance HIV care engagement among Black gay and bisexual men, and she is also the PI of a R21 project to develop a choir intervention to promote psychosocial wellbeing among older people living with HIV. Dr. Tan’s research interests also include food insecurity among undocumented immigrants, smoking cessation among transgender women living with HIV, and dietary acculturation and cancer risks among Asian/Pacific Islander cisgender women.
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 Nynikka Palmer, DrPH, MPH, Assistant Professor in the Division of General Internal Medicine at ZSFG says, "as an African American, my community is overrepresented among patients with disease and preventable deaths, yet underrepresented as recipients of high-quality health care, participants in research, and investigators directing the research." Her goal is to conduct research dedicated to unraveling the mechanisms of these disparities, with a depth of knowledge in cultural influence, patient-centered care and communication, strategies that enhance delivery of high-quality cancer care. She also recognizes the importance of community engagement and strongly believes in the adage, “nothing about me without me,” as patients’ and communities’ perspectives are essential to advance research and optimize care. She currently has a NCI K01 career development award to bridge the divide between low-income African American men and equal prostate cancer treatment by anchoring the evidence-based intervention of peer navigation in the relational concept of African American brotherhood as a means to foster trust and empowerment, and optimize patient-centered communication and quality of care. She is co-leader of the Prostate Cancer Task Force of the San Francisco Cancer Initiative (SF CAN), which aims to eliminate prostate cancer disparities among African American men through community engagement and education, targeted early detection and appropriate follow-up of aggressive disease, navigation and support services, and multiple institutional partnerships that ensure high-quality care throughout the city and county of San Francisco.
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 Tung Nguyen, MD, Professor in the Division of General Internal Medicine at UCSF Health, uses patient-centered and/or community-based participatory research methods to ensure that research projects address health equity issues from conception to dissemination and include input from diverse patients and community leaders. He currently is working on several intervention research projects for health equity using mobile technologies, including an innovative online patient navigation portal in 3 languages for cancer patients. Through CTSI, Dr. Nguyen is helping to develop the UCSF research infrastructure to enable efficient and effective engagement of diverse communities through projects such as the PCORI-funded ASPIRE, UCSF COVID Research Patient and Community Advisory Board, and the Special Populations and Health Equity for Research and Education (SPHERE) Initiative.
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 Please save the date for the next UCSF Health and Campus COVID-19 Response Town Hall on Friday, June 26, 2020 from 4:00pm to 5:00pm which will address the UCSF research community response to COVID-19, as well as planning for recovery. Zoom (Pin: 832551).
Recordings of recent Medicine Grand Rounds presentations related to COVID-19 are now available:
- June 18th - Covid-19: Update in Therapies (including Steroids), and Covid Patients with Persistent Symptoms: What’s Going On?
- June 11th - Covid-19: Update in Epidemiology, and, Are the Publication and FDA Approval Processes Moving Too Fast for Safety?
- June 4th - The Covid-19 Pandemic in the Context of the Healthcare System, Economy, Race, Politics, Ethics, and History.
- May 28th - Update on Covid-19: Testing, ICU Practices and Outcomes at ZSFG, and the Experience of Elders in the Covid-19 Pandemic.
- May 21st - Experience in New York, the UCSF Mission and Bolinas Community Studies, and the Uses and Limitations of Antibody Testing.
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 New Online Resource: UCSF COVID-19 Related Research
The UCSF Office of Research and research stakeholders have created and launched a new website dedicated to the ongoing efforts to understand, treat, and cure COVID-19. It provides a compendium of SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 research projects with the hope of fostering campus collaboration.
To learn about the range of the current research-in-progress and explore specific projects as well as opportunities to participate in clinical trials, click on the button below.
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COVID-19 Related NIH Update
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Special Exception to the NIH/AHRQ/NIOSH Post-Submission Material Policy During the COVID-19 Pandemic
The NIH, AHRQ, and NIOSH understand that the emergency declaration related to COVID-19 will adversely affect the ability of many applicants to generate preliminary data in time for their grant applications submitted for the current due dates (for January 2021 Council beginning with applications submitted for the May 25, 2020 due date). However, with implementation of the President's Guidelines for Re-Opening America Again, NIH, AHRQ, and NIOSH anticipate that many investigators may be able to generate preliminary data for those applications before peer review. Therefore, this notice provides an exception to the NIH/AHRQ/NIOSH policy for post-submission materials (NOT-OD-19-083).
To read about NIAID opportunities and announcements, click here. For further details on this notice: NOT-OD-20-123, click on the button below.
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 Timothy Henrich, MD, Associate Professor in the Division of Experimental Medicine at ZSFG received an award from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for his project, "Longitudinal Immunological Impact of SARS-CoV-2 Infection."
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Career Development Awards
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Congratulations to our two DOM recipients of the 2020 Grunfeld Scholars Research Development Initiative; Daniel Calabrese, MD and Scott Bauer, MD, MS. The Grunfeld Scholars Research Development Initiative is named for Carl Grunfeld, MD, PhD, SFVAHCS's associate chief of staff for research and development. Dr. Grunfeld is a renowned clinician-scientist who has contributed over four decades of research excellence to the SFVAHCS.
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 Congratulations to Michele Tana, MD, Associate Professor in the Division of Gastroenterology at ZSFG for winning the Department of Medicine's Cohort Grant for 2020! Her project, titled, "Expanding Prospective Observational Study to Understand Liver Diseases (POSULD) to Investigate Disparities in Autoimmune Hepatitis," will receive $100,000 for two years to expand the cohort.
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UCSF Mid-career Development Awards, "Bolstering the pipeline to achieve health equity: A UCSF program to support mid-career faculty."
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 Jae Sevelius, PhD, Associate Professor Division of Prevention Sciences at UCSF Health, leverages data to develop culturally relevant, trauma-informed, and transgender–specific programs and interventions to promote holistic health and wellness among transgender people, with an emphasis on serving transgender women of color and those affected by HIV.
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 Maria Chao, DrPH, MPA, Associate Professor in the Division of General Internal Medicine at ZSFG, investigates how complementary and integrative health approaches can advance health equity and improve quality of life among underserved populations living with chronic conditions.
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 Courtney Lyles, PhD, Associate Professor in the Division of General Internal Medicine at ZSFG, harnesses health information technology to improve patient-provider communication for chronic disease self-management to ultimately reduce disparities in health and healthcare outcomes for low-income and racial/ethnic minority populations.
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 A.P. Giannini Foundation - Postdoctoral Research Fellowship
Application deadline is November 4th
The 2021 Postdoctoral Research Fellowship & Leadership Award Program invites physician-scientists and junior researchers with 3 to 36 months of postdoctoral research experience to apply. The Fellowship and Leadership Award Program supports innovative research in the basic sciences and applied fields and trains fellows to become established investigators and to pursue scientific leadership positions in academia, industry, public and non-traditional career pathways.
Applications are due by 3:00pm Pacific time on November 4th, 2020. Applicants must use the 2021 application form [ DOC | PDF ] to apply. All letters of reference must be sent to info@apgianninifoundation.org.
To read more about eligibility and requirements, click on the button below.
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 Funding Opportunity for Early Career Faculty
Application deadline is July 10th
The Shurl and Kay Curci Foundation (SKCF) in partnership with the Innovative Genomics Institute (IGI) are providing a funding opportunity for Early Career Faculty. The SKCF Faculty Scholar Award funds biomedical and agricultural basic research that can lead to applications related to human health and wellness. Projects should be aligned with the IGI's vision in which genome engineering innovations benefit humanity. An award of $179,000 will provide faculty with research support over a two year period. Early career faculty (in the first 4 years) in the following institutions: UC Berkeley, UC Davis and UC San Francisco. Applications are due July 10th, 2020. For proposal guidelines, click here. To apply, click here.
For further details regarding this opportunity, click on the button below.
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DOM PREPARE Program
Requests for grant reviews are accepted on an ongoing basis
Get expert peer reviews for your R, K and U proposals via the PREPARE program! We encourage you to submit a request even if your upcoming grant deadline is less than 6 weeks away. To date 30% of our reviews have been rapid response.
For more information, click here to contact us.
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