11 September DRC Director's Report - September 2023 September 11, 2023 By The Fraternal Order of Eagles Diabetes Research Center DRC, Iowa, Diabetes 0 Health and Human Physiology assistant professor Anna Stanhewicz has just been awarded a five-year grant from the National Institutes of Health totaling $3.035 million to put towards her research. Her focus lies in gestational diabetes and the long-term impact it has on those who have had it. Women who develop gestational diabetes during pregnancy are two times more likely to develop cardiovascular disease and 7 times more likely to develop type 2 diabetes in the decade after pregnancy, but the reason why this occurs is unclear and there are currently no specific treatment strategies to prevent this disease progression. This project addresses this public health issue. The grant will help fund her research for the next five years. “I was very surprised and really excited,” Stanhewicz says on earning the grant. “Career-wise, it’s a big step; getting this grant will help me continue to establish my work at the university, as an independent investigator capable of conducting meaningful research on campus.” Stanhewicz reflects that, although she had long researched high blood pressure during pregnancy, it was the FOEDRC that inspired her to craft a research plan to study gestational diabetes. During her first summer at the university, when the pandemic was at its peak and human volunteers were low, the FOEDRC sent out a call for proposals, which Stanhewicz was happy to respond to. The FOEDRC reviewed her proposal favorably, recognizing the potential impact of her project. The pilot grant funding from the FOEDRC helped her research project grow into what eventually received the major federal NIH grant. “If it weren’t for the diabetes research center, I probably wouldn’t have pursued this research question at all,” Stanhewicz explains. Stanhewicz says she is grateful to the diabetes research center, but also to the people who volunteer their time for the sake of research. “All the research that we do in my lab and in a lot of groups on campus is really dependent on human volunteer subjects, so we’re really indebted and appreciative of them for the effort that they put into the work,” says Stanhewicz. “As scientists, we get a lot of credit, but the participants really are an equal part of the team. We appreciate them.” Related Articles DRC Director's Report - September 2022 Over the past decade, evidence has emerged indicating that high blood sugars in type 1 diabetes cause adverse brain changes in children. The adverse changes include abnormal brain structural alterations and reduced functioning on some cognitive tests. Over the past few years, hybrid closed-loop insulin pumps have become commercially available. These devices combine a continuous glucose monitor (CGM) with an insulin pump that is controlled by an algorithm that uses the CGM data to inform insulin delivery. DRC Director's Report - May 2023 The Fraternal Order of Eagles Diabetes Research Center held its Annual Diabetes Research Day on Monday, April 17th. With a strong emphasis on collaboration and sharing of knowledge, this event brought together about 65 researchers, clinicians, and students to advance the understanding of diabetes and improve patient outcomes. Diabetes Research Day featured a lineup of activities including short talks, a keynote address, T32 presentations and a poster session DRC Director's Report - July 2023 Dr. Julien Sebag is leading one of the research projects funded through the Bridge to Cure program. This month, his project has reached a major milestone, having been published in a prestigious journal. In this publication Dr. Sebag recognized the support provided by the FOE through the Bridge to the Cure program. DRC Director's Report - September 2021 Congratulations to Huxing Cui, PhD, Assistant Professor of Neuroscience and Pharmacology and member of the FOEDRC, who is the recent recipient of a National Institutes of Health R01 grant. Cui’s grant funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute provides $2,267,270 through March of 2025. The proposal is entitled: “Decoding brain circuit underlying metabolic regulation of sleep-wake behavior”. Sleep disorders and obesity are inextricably linked – poor sleep quality and short sleep duration increase the risk of developing obesity, while obesity is an independent risk factor for chronic sleep disruption (CSD) and excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS). DRC Director's Report - August 2023 The FOEDRC maintains two Core Research Facilities. FOEDRC scientists rely heavily on these two Core Research Facilities. These Cores are centralized laboratories that allow researchers to perform experiments needing specialized technologies in a time- and cost-efficient way. This month we focus our report on the world-class FOEDRC Metabolomics Core Facility. DRC Director's Report -October 2023 Congratulations to the 2023-2024 FOEDRC Pilot & Feasibility Grant Recipients! The Fraternal Order of Eagles Diabetes Research Center is pleased to announce the results of its thirteenth round of Pilot and Feasibility Grants. These grant awards fund innovative pilot projects by early career investigators who are entering the diabetes research field, or established investigators with innovative ideas that focus on a new direction in diabetes research. The goal of the program is to generate data that will enable awardees to compete for peer-reviewed national funding for diabetes related projects that show exceptional promise. Over a dozen researchers from across the University of Iowa campus submitted meritorious proposals that underwent a comprehensive and competitive peer-review process. Two applicants were selected to receive a catalyst award grant of $50,000 to support their research proposal, with the possibility for a second year of funding, for a total of $100,000 over a two-year period. Two applicants were selected to receive one-year seed grant awards of $5,000 each to support discreet research proposals to obtain data needed to generate essential preliminary data in a diabetes-related project to increase competitive for subsequent extramural funding. Showing 0 Comment Comments are closed.