The Southern California Clinical and Translational Science Institute (SC CTSI) funded 10 USC and CHLA researchers for the Spring 2019 award cycle. The SC CTSI awards over $400K annually in clinical and community research or in improving research methods and processes.  These awards are intended to support preliminary research that will lead to larger extramurally-funded human mechanistic studies, clinical trials, community trials, health outcomes research, or implementation research.  They are also intended to support the development and testing of new approaches and/or tools that increase the speed, efficiency, safety and/or quality of clinical, community, health outcomes and/or implementation research.

“For the Spring 2019 award cycle, we received 58 competitive applications,” said Sarah Hamm-Alvarez, PhD, director of the SC CTSI Research Development core.  “Our funding opportunities really do support a wide range of research needs, career stages, and disciplines, so if faculty missed the Spring 2019 award cycle we encourage them to apply for our immediate funding cycle during the Fall 2019,” Dr. Hamm-Alvarez added. 

Spring 2019 Pilot Funding Awardees: 

Clinical and Community Research Pilot

• Alice Cepeda, PhD. Associate Professor, Social Work. “Depression, Meth and Safe Sex Behaviors: Assessing the Feasibility and Acceptability of a HIV Cognitive Behavioral Intervention for Young Adult Latina Women.”
• Assal Habibi, PhD. Assistant Professor, Medicine. “Short-term Music Training and Auditory Processing in Older Adults.”
• Benjamin Henwood, PhD. Associate Professor, Social Work. “Piloting the CAPABLE model in Permanent Supportive Housing.”
• Beth Smith, PT, DPT, PhD. Assistant Professor, Dentistry. “Leg movement assessment in infants at high risk for autism.”
• Edward Todd Schroeder, PhD. Associate Professor, Dentistry. “Cerebrovascular Mechanisms of Cognitive Enhancement after Periodized Resistance Training in Older Adults.”
• Gangning Liang, MD, PhD. Professor, Medicine.  Siamak Daneshmand, MD. Associate Professor, Medicine. “Developing DNA Methylation Markers to Monitor and/or Predict Response to Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy in muscle invasive Bladder Cancer
• Sarah Hamm-Alvarez, PhD. Professor, Medicine. Brook Hjelm, MD. Assistant Professor. Medicine. “RNA-Seq on Tears: Biomarker Discovery for Parkinson’s Disease”
• Tomas Konecny, MD, PhD. Assistant Professor, Medicine. “Electrophysiologic Biomarkers of Atrial Fibrillation in Patients with Obstructive Spleep Apnea.
• Tyler Mason, MD. Assistant Professor, Medicine. Rima Habre, ScD. Assistant Professor. Medicine. “A geospatial toolkit to investigate within-day and daily spatiotemporal covariations in geospatial contexts, environmental exposures, bio-behavioral responses, and obesity risk.

Improving Research Process and Methods

• Haris Zahoor, MD. Assistant Professor, Keck School of Medicine. “Radiomic signature of CD8+ T cell infiltration and PD-L1 expression in clear cell renal cell carcinoma.”

View a full list of the Spring 2019 pilot awardees and keep a look out for the SC CTSI’s funding opportunities coming up this Fall 2019.

SC CTSI is a member of the National Institutes of Health-funded Clinical and Translational Science Awards consortium. Under the banner of Translating Science into Solutions for Better Health, the institute provides a wide range of services and training opportunities for researchers.