Houston Methodist Academic Institute
NEWSLETTER
November 2021
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Annual International Kostas meeting competitively awards presenters
The George and Angelina Kostas Research Center for Cardiovascular Nanomedicine International Meeting was held virtually at Houston Methodist in October.
The event featured a panel discussion on the Future of Cardiovascular Nano-Therapeutics. Course directors were John P. Cooke, MD, PhD, and Alessandro Grattoni, PhD.
Pieter Cullis, PhD, a professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of British Columbia and Scientific Director and CEO of Nanomedicines Innovation Network, provided the keynote address on "Lipids, Lipid Nanoparticles and Covid-19 Vaccines.”
This annual event drew 245 registrants from 18 countries and featured 14 speakers, 24 poster presenters and four who participated in a competition inspired by television show Shark Tank.
- Six poster-session awards were given for a total of $3,250. Anahita Mojiri, PhD, took the top prize of $1,000 for “An mRNA Nanotherapeutic for Reversing Vascular Senescence and Extending Lifespan.”
- Carly Filgueira, PhD, and Nilesh Mathuria, MD, won the prize of $10,000 in the competition inspired by Shark Tank.
- Kostas Grant Awards also were announced.
- Georgia Nichols Kostas and Cynthia Kostas provided closing remarks at the event.
Digital Methodology
The power of nanotechnology
Nanotechnology offers a steadily climbing number of applications and advances in the treatment and prevention of cardiovascular diseases - the leading cause of death in the United States.
Read more in Digital Methodology.
Announcements
Houston Methodist Intramural Awards portal launches
Academic Affairs is pleased to introduce the Houston Methodist Intramural Awards portal. Applications for intramural programs, including the upcoming Clinical Scholars Award Program and Bridge to TRI, must be submitted through this portal. Webinars and Q&A sessions will be provided via Microsoft Teams to help investigators and administrators learn how to use the portal. One-hour webinars will provide an overview of the submission portal with time for questions. Q&A sessions will take place the week of application submissions; an Academic Affairs representative will be available to answer individual questions.
Event
Date
Time*
Microsoft Teams Details
Submission Portal Webinar #2
Nov. 9, 2021
Noon – 1 p.m.
Click here to join the meeting
Submission Portal Q&A sessions #2
Nov. 29-30, 2021
11 a.m. – noon
Click here to join the meeting
Advanced Specific Aims Development
In this workshop, key aspects of specific aims are discussed; how specific aims patterns are identified and used to examine attendees' specific aims regarding content and impact. Led by Dorothy Lewis, PhD, Manager, Faculty Development, this 90-minute workshop on Tuesday, Nov. 9, from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., will provide a brief lecture, followed by participants' small group interactions. Attendees will learn:
- Specific aim patterns or rhetoric that drive success
- Come with an idea, leave with specific aims
Group Practice Mindfulness for Wellbeing
During Q4 2021, a series of “no fuss, no frills” group practice sessions. These will be instructor led, 90-minute guided group mindfulness practice sessions with no lecture, no video requirements. Come once, twice or more. No pre-registration required.
To login, follow the links below:
Wednesday, Nov. 10, Noon-1:30 p.m.
Thursday, Nov. 18, 8:30-10 a.m.
Tuesday, Dec. 7, 6:30-8 p.m.
Monday, Dec. 13, 8:30-10 a.m.
Virtual Development Series for Academic Excellence
Are you interested in developing your professional and academic career? The Office of Academic Development is hosting a Virtual Development Series for Academic Excellence. You will learn about topics including working across generations, cognitive biases in teaching and learning, and more.
The next topic, Social Media to Advance Your Career, is on Nov. 11. Click here to register.
Translational Quality Seminar Series: Documentation
The Translational Quality seminar series will cover quality systems and regulations that govern the production of clinical grade products for research. Quality experts from the cGMP Core within the Office of Translational Production & Quality will provide definitions, explanations and real-life illustrations for each topic, with a focus on practical solutions to common quality challenges faced by researchers.
Monthly Topics
Nov. 11: Documentation
Dec. 9: Qualification and Validation
Jan. 13: Quality Management and the Pharmaceutical Quality System
Click here to join the meeting.
Continuing Education (CE) Course: Introduction to Mindfulness
At the conclusion of this instructor led, live classroom lecture and practice via Zoom, the participant should be able to: (1) define mindfulness, (2) discuss how mindfulness can improve health and well-being in everyday living and in the workplace, and (3) describe mindfulness tools that can be applied to everyday living.
To register, follow the link below:
Monday, Nov. 15, Noon – 2 p.m.
Academic Institute Town Hall
Join us for the “State of the Academic Institute,” presented by H. Dirk Sostman, MD, FACR, Ernest Cockrell, Jr. Presidential Distinguished Chair and Houston Methodist Chief Academic Officer on Thursday, Nov. 18, from 2 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. There will be discussions on the Roadmap to the Infectious Disease Center of Excellence and Faculty Development with special guest James Musser MD, PhD, and Rebecca Hall, PhD.
Click here to register.
Introduction to Career Development Mentoring Documents for F&K Awards
This 60-minute lecture is designed to support individuals applying for post-doctoral fellowships and mentored K awards. Led by Dorothy Lewis, PhD, on Tuesday, Nov. 30, from 11 a.m. to noon, participants will learn how to create a description of your mentor's experiences and mentees, craft a personal statement and learn what their mentors should say to support their project.
Click here to register.
Praying for each other
It has been a little over a year since the launch of the Prayer Connect Team at Houston Methodist Hospital. Every week, an email has been sent out to this community with requests to pray over. In that time, nearly 160 Methodist employees have committed to pray for more than 500 requests from our colleagues and community.
We believe that staying connected is vital to our wellbeing, so please consider joining the chaplains in this initiative. If you would like to join us in praying for the requests of our employees and community, please reply to this email or contact Michela deTranaltes, Project Specialist for Grace Ministries at mdetranaltes@houstonmethodist.org, so we can add you to our confidential online community.
If you would like to submit a prayer, either text PRAYER to 45991 or email us at HMHPrayerRequest@houstonmethodist.org.
Hang Ten: Employee Support Group
Hang Ten provides a safe and confidential environment for mutual support. A chaplain will facilitate the group and introduce life tools such as mindfulness, intentionality and reframing.
Each session will stand alone, so feel free to log on any week for as long as your time permits. The group meets every Tuesday from noon to 1 p.m. Click here to join the recurring meeting.
Accolades
Constance Mobley, MD, PhD, FACS, was appointed to the Houston Methodist Board of Directors.
David S. Baskin, MD, received an award at Congress of Neurological Surgeons Annual Meeting 2021 for promising research using the first noninvasive and nontoxic therapy to treat glioblastoma.
Carly S. Filgueira, PhD, recently was awarded two grants exceeding $600,000 from the Department of Defense to support her projects on a spectroscopic approach to overcome the barriers of early familial hypercholesterolemia diagnosis and the effects of thyroid hormone metabolite treatment for postmenopausal heart repair. These grants supplement an original seed grant of $50,000 ($25,000 from Methodist, $25,000 from Rice University) that was awarded to support her project, “A Field-Deployable, Small Molecule Nanosensor with Specificity Based on Lipophilicity”. Filgueira currently is investigating nanotechnological approaches to find alternative treatment strategies for physiological disorders.
Muralidhar Hegde, PhD, recently was honored with a Vebleo Fellowship. He delivered the keynote talk, “A New Era of Genome Damage Response at the Forefront of Brain Health and Therapy” in a webinar on materials science, engineering and technology.
NIH News
All About Grants Podcast – To Resubmit or Not
Two NIH program officers join us in this NIH All About Grants podcast to discuss what should be considered when deciding whether to resubmit an application.
When in Doubt, Reach Out!
Knowing when to reach out and who to contact at NIH is important. Earlier this month we restructured our "Need Help?" page based on feedback received from web page surveys.
Announcement of Childcare Costs for Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award Institutional Research Training Awards
The NIH has announced it will begin providing childcare cost support to full-time predoctoral and postdoctoral trainees appointed on NRSA institutional research training awards.
Watch
Videos on Watch
12th Annual Myasthenia Gravis Health Care Professional and Patient Education Conferences
Program overview
This program is designed to familiarize health care professionals, including neurologists, and non-neurologists, regarding clinical presentations and evaluation of patients with acquired neuromuscular junction disorders, including myasthenia gravis, Lambert Eaton myasthenic syndrome to enable care providers the ability to diagnosis and manage the myasthenic patient in the acute and ambulatory care settings and minimize disease morbidity and mortality.
Day 1 – Health Care Professionals Education
Day 2 – Patient Education
CVD Prevention Symposium 2021
Click here to view the symposium
Program overview
The most important way to avoid cardiovascular disease (heart attacks, heart failure, arrhythmias) is prevention. Most cardiovascular diseases can be prevented when other risk factors, such as being overweight, smoking, alcohol abuse, and not participating in physical activity are addressed. Early detection and medicine management are key for treating patients who present cardiovascular risks, such as hypertension, diabetes, hyperlipidemia or a pre-existing disease.
The number of patients with obesity and diabetes continues to rise. Therefore, more emphasis needs to be on prevention, rather than interventional. This educational event will provide updates on the most current recommendations for cardiovascular disease prevention, ranging from lifestyle interventions, to testing, and clinical decision-making for physicians, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, residents, and fellows. For example, diet, exercise and obesity-related guidelines (primary prevention), or which patients with high cardiovascular risk require a CAC scan, and/or who to put on a statin (secondary prevention).
COVID-19 Resources
Houston Methodist provides a variety of tools to facilitate collaborative research projects related to coronavirus. The following resources are available at https://www.tmc.edu/coronavirus-updates/
- Elsevier Coronavirus Research Hub Curated COVID-19 Funding Opportunities
- National Institutes of Health Coronavirus (COVID-19) Resources
- PURE Coronavirus Portal for Research Collaboration
- Read about our COVID-19 research on the Methodology COVID-19 News page. Read our seven-step process as told to the Harvard Business Review that can help employers decide about employee-mandated COVID-19 vaccinations
In the Media
Anh Nguyen, MD, was interviewed this morning on NPR’s Here & Now, a nationally syndicated radio program. The interview and web story can be found here. Nguyen got her booster during her 34th week of pregnancy and shared important messages for pregnant women who are hesitant about the COVID vaccine.
Howard Huang, MD, talked with a WebMD reporter on the irony of patients seeking monoclonal antibody treatment, which has the same FDA emergency-use authorization previously held by vaccines. In the article, “Vaccine holdouts embrace COVID antibody treatment, mystifying doctors,” Huang stressed how much better is it to not get COVID in the first place by getting the vaccine. You can read his comments at WebMD.com.
Huang also was interviewed by KPRC Channel 2 reporter Bill Spencer regarding monoclonal antibody treatments for early case COVID-19 patients. A 65-year-old patient who received the therapy at Houston Methodist’s infusion site in Walter Tower and recovered within 24 hours also was interviewed. You can view and read the story here on Click2Houston.com.
Robert Phillips, MD, PhD, recently participated in a webinar for U.S. News on Hospital Emergency Preparedness. USN&WR posted an article about the event on their site.
Rahul Pandit, MD, recently provided comments on a story looking at different glaucoma treatments. The story is for TheHealthy.com. He is identified as associate professor of clinical ophthalmology at the Blanton Eye Institute, Houston Methodist Hospital.
COVID Vaccine Mandate / Lawsuit –
Washington Post
MSNBC Morning Joe
CNN Newsroom
COVID rates declining/hospital operations
Other news items
President Bill Clinton / Sepsis
Job Postings
We have job openings in the Academic Institute. Please visit the link below to find one that interests you, or if it is one you might be able to recommend to someone else.
- Senior Communications Editor
There are many other jobs open in the Academic Institute. Click here to see if there is one that interests you, or if you know someone who might be interested.
Policy Reminders
BP in Practice is an educational reminder designed to raise awareness regarding Business Practices hot topics, relevant laws and policies & procedures. Find archives of BP in Practice here. If you have questions, contact the BP EthicsLine at 800.500.0333 or visit tmhs.myethicsline.com.
Publications
Implications of the 2019 American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Primary Prevention Guidelines and potential value of the coronary artery calcium score among South Asians in the US: The Mediators of Atherosclerosis in South Asians Living in America (MASALA) study.
Waqas Haque, Gowtham R. Grandhi, Alka M. Kanaya, Namratha R. Kandula, Khurram Nasir, Mahmoud Al Rifai, S.M. Iftekhar Uddin, Ugo Fedeli, Naveed Sattar, Roger S. Blumenthal, Michael J. Blaha, Miguel Cainzos-Achirica. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.atherosclerosis.2021.08.030
Forgone Medical Care Associated With Increased Health Care Costs Among the U.S. Heart Failure Population
Alexander Thomas, Javier Valero-Elizondo, Rohan Khera, Haider J. Warraich, Samuel W. Reinhardt, Hyeon-Ju Ali, Khurram Nasir, Nihar R. Desai. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jchf.2021.05.010
Trajectory of Growth of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) Variants in Houston, Texas, January through May 2021, Based on 12,476 Genome Sequences
Randall J. Olsen, Paul A. Christensen, S. Wesley Long, Sishir Subedi, Parsa Hodjat, Robert Olson, Marcus Nguyen, James J. Davis, Prasanti Yerramilli, Matthew O. Saavedra, Layne Pruitt, Kristina Reppond, Madison N. Shyer, Jessica Cambric, Ryan Gadd, Rashi M. Thakur, Akanksha Batajoo, Ilya J. Finkelstein, Jimmy Gollihar, James M. Musser. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajpath.2021.07.002
Added prognostic value of plaque burden to computed tomography angiography and myocardial perfusion imaging
Ahmed Ibrahim Ahmed, Yushui Han, Mahmoud Al Rifai, Talal Alnabelsi, Faisal Nabi, Su Min Chang, Mohammed A. Chamsi-Pasha, Khurram Nasir, John J. Mahmarian, Miguel Cainzos-Achirica, Mouaz H. Al-Mallah. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.atherosclerosis.2021.08.032
High Free Cholesterol Bioavailability Drives the Tissue Pathologies in Scarb1 −/− Mice
Jing Liu, Baiba K. Gillard, Dedipya Yelamanchili, Antonio M. Gotto, Corina Rosales, Henry J. Pownall. https://doi.org/10.1161/atvbaha.121.316535
If you have a featured publication, for example on a journal cover, please let us know so we can include it in our next issue.
Funding Opportunities
Doris Duke Charitable Foundation (DDCF) Clinical Scientist Development Award
2022 Request for Applications
Key Dates
Pre-proposal applications deadline November 12, 2021, 3 pm ET
Invitation to submit a full proposal January 14, 2022
Full proposal deadline March 11, 2022, 3 pm ET
Notice of Award End of May 2022
Award Start Date July 1, 2022
Please find additional details regarding this opportunity at the following link: https://www.ddcf.org/funding-areas/medical-research/clinical-scientist-development-award/
For assistance with the online application, please contact Catherine S. Del Paggio at csdelpaggio@houstonmethodist.org.
Clinical Scholar Awards Request for Applications
The reissuance of the Clinical Scholar Awards Request for Applications (RFA) has been announced. Academic Affairs solicits nominations of exceptionally talented individuals who are educated and trained in clinical practice and seek support for translational research, clinical trials, or education. The Clinical Scholar offers three funding tracks: The Clinician Scientist Award requires awardees to dedicate 50% of their time to laboratory research and 50% of their time to clinical practice. The Clinician Trialist Award requires awardees to devote 20% of their time to clinical research (e.g., clinical trials, patient-based research, or outcomes research) and 80% of their time to clinical practice. The Clinician Educator Award requires awardees to commit 20% of their time to educational activities (e.g., educational effectiveness research or curriculum design and implementation studies) and 80% of their time to clinical practice.
Key Dates
Applications Due: Dec. 10, 2021, at Noon
Applications Reviewed: December 2021 - January 2022
Awards Announced: February 2022
For complete details on how to apply, please visit Houston Methodist Intramural Awards.
*All times CST
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