Four UAMS Faculty Receive 2022 Provost’s Innovator Awards
| The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) announced four UAMS faculty as recipients of the Provost’s Innovator Awards.
Lisa Brents, Ph.D.
The awards were established by Stephanie Gardner, Pharm.D., Ed.D., UAMS provost and chief strategy officer, and Shuk-Mei Ho, Ph.D., vice chancellor for Research and Innovation. The grants of $25,000 each support groundbreaking, innovative, high-impact projects that are likely to establish new clinical approaches or achieve rapid commercialization.
Below are the awardees, project titles and descriptions of their work:
Lisa Brents, Ph.D., assistant professor, College of Medicine Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology
Project title: Development of a Fetal Protective Agent Against Prenatal Opioid Use Disorder
Neonatal opioid withdrawal syndrome (NOWS) has skyrocketed during the opioid epidemic in this country. Every 25 minutes a baby is born suffering from NOWS. The hospital stay for a NOWS newborn is more than seven times longer than for a newborn without NOWS, and hospital costs are over 10 times higher. Brents’ research will develop a new drug, deuterated buprenorphine (BUP-D2) to reduce NOWS in newborns born to people in opioid medication-assisted treatment during pregnancy. Additionally, it will
Lyle Burdine, M.D.
protect the fetus from opioids taken by a pregnant person (engaged in treatment) who relapses to illicit opioid use.
Lyle Burdine, M.D. Ph.D., associate professor of Transplant Surgery/director of Organ Transplant, College of Medicine Department of Surgery
Project title: Interventional Radiologic Targeting of the Splenic PALS for in Vivo Immune Cell Programming in Pigs
Collected adoptive transfer therapy is a procedure by which a patient’s own cells are gathered, altered at a genetic level and replaced back in the human body to achieve a therapeutic goal. The most successful example of this therapy to date is CAR-T therapy, whereby a patient’s T cells are removed, engineered to kill a specific type of cancer and replaced into the body. This project would create a technological platform that allows for the performance of gene therapy in the human body.
J. Craig Forrest, Ph.D., professor, College of Medicine Department of Microbiology and Immunology
Project title: Developing Viral Vectors for Gammaherpesviruses
Craig Forrest, Ph.D.
Gammaherpesviruses (GHVs) are DNA tumor viruses that establish lifelong chronic infections in lymphocytes, specifically B and T cells. Infection by human GHVs such as Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) and Kaposi sarcoma virus (KSHV) place individuals at risk for several different cancers. Forrest’s lab combines human and rodent GHV systems to define virus/host disease determinants and develop anti-GHV vaccines. Forrest’s work will produce viral vectors needed to develop a vaccine vector and identify potential antiviral drugs. Moreover, development of these therapies for companion animals (e.g. domestic cats) will offer a critical proof-of-concept that serves as a foundation for developing GHV vaccine candidates for humans.
Gresham Richter, M.D., FACS, FAAP, professor, vice chair and chief of Pediatric Otolaryngology, College of Medicine Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery
Project title: Patient-Centric Monitoring for Invasive Ventilation
Tracheostomy tubes are necessary in adults and children who require prolonged ventilation or protection from severe upper airway obstruction. Pediatric patients particularly need extra monitoring for respiratory difficulties. We have created a device to allow home physiologic monitoring with the ability to measure physiological parameters (heart rate, respiratory rate, pulse oximetry and temperature) in patients with or without mechanical ventilation. This work will result in a patient-centered, minimalist, easy to use, robust, portable monitoring device for patients requiring mechanical ventilation.
Gresham Richter, M.D.