Our New Partners in Research and Training in 2022

Precision Aging Network

While in 2019, our EMBI received support from the MBRF to work on a pilot project to gather data to support the University of Arizona’s U19 grant submission led by Dr Carol Barnes, the official and in depth partnering began this year In late 2021, NIH awarded a $60 million grant for the multicentered Precision Aging Network (PAN) Since then and throughout 2022, we have been deeply involved in setting up the Precision Aging Network (PAN) research infrastructure, IRB, protocols, SOPs and other activities at UM for this complex research program. It is a partnership focused on sustaining healthy minds for life. PAN’s approach is to discover personalized solutions to improve brain health and has partnered with the NIH MindCrowd program. MindCrowd is the first crowd sourced scientific research project to understand how the brain ages to prevent diseases like dementia and is seeking to enroll one million people to take an online memory and attention test. The PAN project seeks to learn key drivers of healthy brain functioning through the aging process, how to achieve optimal brain function across the life span, and how researchers can help to predict, prevent or slow unwanted age-related changes in brain and cognitive health Dr. Rundek is the Site PI and PAN Clinical Project 2 Co-Director with Dr Lee Ryan from UA Dr. Levin is a Co-Investigator at the UM site Our site also has an extensive team that includes Susan Fox-Rosellini, Marti Flothmann, Digna Cabral, Anara Feal Rodriguez, Marisa Modjeski and Stacy Merritt

Launch of PAN at UM

We had a successful launch of the Precision Aging Network (PAN) project at our EMBI, led by Drs. Rundek and Levin. A team of 10 embarked on this endeavor for over a year to get it off the ground. With this tremendous team effort that included multiple moving parts such as weekly meetings with the lead site, internal weekly meetings, regular communication and scientific meetings, an in-person meeting at UA, in-person training meetings at UM, local and central IRB submissions and approvals, biospecimen processing and storage arrangements, acquisition of study space, state-of-the art MRI protocols and ultrasound neurovascular imaging, and so much more. Dr. Rundek, leader of the Carotid Ultrasound Core study-wide, organized and hosted a training at our site for all clinical sites (Emory, Georgia Tech, Johns Hopkins, UA, and UM) She gave a presentation on the history and technology of carotid ultrasound imaging The training involved demonstrations by the lead ultrasound technician, training in performing standardized and validated ultrasound protocols in which all sonographers were trained and certified to perform the scanning according to the research protocols Rigorous QC and adherence with the protocol measures are in place, and re-training planned if needed We have started enrollment at UM, with our first participant enrolled on December 20, 2022

Movement Disorders Division

Dr. Ihtsham Haq is Director of the Movement Disorder Division at UM Department of Neurology and a new collaborative researcher in our EMBI His overall research interest has been in understanding and improving the care of patients with movement disorders and Lewy Body Dementia with a focus on technology and brain circuitry One of his priorities is to take concrete steps to ensure historically underrepresented patients are provided an opportunity to participate in research at UM, including pipeline programs, advocacy and disparity research He has been an important collaborator with our imaging pipeline initiative and meets regularly with the EMBI team regarding the two funded research projects funded by FL Department of Health (Dr. Rundek PI on both), Carotid Ultrasound Imaging Markers o AGINg and Endothelial function in Risk of Alzheimer’s Disease The Florida IMAGINE Study of AD Risk (VIP); and Caroti Ultrasound Imaging Markers of AGINg and Endothelial function i Risk of Alzheimer’s Disease: The Florida IMAGINE Study of A Risk (IMAGINE) study. He has been a terrific collaborator and mentor to our PhD student and junior faculty on the researc projects and has contributed greatly to moving these project ahead He joins us in this multi-disciplinary collaboration including the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience and Aging, th Department of Radiology and Biomedical engineering Dr Ha was recently named the Cornfeld-Hurowitz Endowed Chair of Movement Disorders

Center for Translational Sleep and Circadian Sciences in the UM Department of Psychiatry Dr. Girardin Jean-Louis, Director of this recently established center, is a newly recruited leader in sleep science at UM He comes from NYU and brings unique expertise to this partnership with EMBI EMBI has established a solid collaborative program with him and his team The vision of the Center for Translational Sleep and Circadian Sciences is to serve as a collaborative learning laboratory and a university-wide resource to stimulate, support and evaluate high-priority research in sleep and circadian sciences His Translational Circadian Sleep Laboratory (TCSL) focuses on translational mechanistic studies of sleep and circadian disruption in AD/ADRD pathogenesis and cognitive function, with a particular focus on minority populations and health disparities. As a leader of the NIH Program to Increase Diversity Among Individuals Engaged in Health-Related Research (PRIDE), Dr. Jean-Louis puts health disparity research and training of underrepresented minorities on the frontline at UM. PRIDE is a national stewardship program for training of minority post-doctoral and junior faculty investigators in translational science. While at Columbia University, Dr. Rundek was a lecturer and a mentor in the PRIDE program. As Dr. Jean-Louis brought PRIDE to UM, Dr. Rundek will participate again in PRIDE as an investigator and a mentor.

Immediately upon arrival to Miami, Dr. Jean-Louis continued collaborating with Dr. Rundek and became one of our new EMBI collaborators. Together, they have already submitted three training grants to NIH as MPI, specifically geared toward training and recruiting future minority scientists: two T32s and one R25 From the aspects of structure, organization and data collection needed for successful submission, these are the most challenging and extensive grant types to prepare

The first T32 training grant submitted to the NIH’s National Heart, Blood and Lung Institute (NHBLI), received a fantastic score and has been accepted for funding. The Promoting Academic Workforce Diversity in Translational Behavioral and Cardio-Metabolic Research-PINNACLE project will train, mentor and sustain a network of twelve underrepresented minority post-doctorate trainees committed to developing independent academic careers in translational and behavioral cardiovascular health research This will have a strong impact in achieving the national mandate (Healthy People 2030) to increase diversity in the academic workforce, thus expanding capacity to implement translational models to improve health quality and equity. PINNACLE will begin the first trainee enrollment in January 2023.

The second training program grant, a T32 was submitted to the NIA, Cross-disciplinary research opportunity for training in AD/ADRD science-CrossROADS. It is a 2-year program for MDs and PhDs with the overall goal to increase the number of diverse AD/ADRD investigators-leaders in crossdisciplinary clinical and translational (C/T) research, who can 1) effectively and rapidly disseminate, implement and translate discoveries to practice and community and 2) address the special health challenges and health disparities of the diverse AD/ADRD patients we serve through team science and collaborations in partnerships with AD/ADRD community partners and diverse health care stakeholders While this T32 is a great program with many resources and partnerships to make it successful, it was not funded on the first submission and will be resubmitted in May 2023

The third training grant Dr Rundek submitted with Dr Jean-Louis was an NINDS-R25 program in neuroscience research titled Congruent Mentorship to Reach Academic Diversity In Neuroscience Research-HARNESS The HARNESS Program aims to select qualified under-represented minority postdoctoral PhDs and MDs with great potential to contribute to current knowledge of evidencebased neuroscience models to study neurological diseases The program mentors would increase trainees’ self-efficacy to pursue an academic career that will be achieved via mentoring and active coaching to acquire expertise in behavioral neuroscience and health equity. Trainees would be given intensive individualized training and guidance in grant writing to acquaint them with the NIH review process. This grant application is pending NIH review.

The University of Miami Center for AIDS Research (CFAR) is the first NIH-funded AIDS research center in Florida. The US south is disproportionately impacted by HIV and Florida has the highest number of new HIV diagnoses in the country The Miami CFAR is poised to make a difference with a multipronged approach to combat the HIV epidemic: to provide scientific leadership, to foster integration of basic, clinical, and behavioral/social HIV/AIDS research, and to fill recognized gaps in research and practice

Dr. Rundek’s collaboration with CFAR will formally continue as its funding was just renewed for another 5 years She will continue to be a co-leader of the CFAR Scientific Working Group (SWG) on Aging in HIV and serves on the Steering Committee as a senior investigator in aging research. In this role, she provides leadership, expertise, and mentorship in aging and age-related HIV neurological comorbidities. The goal of a SWG is to promote multi-disciplinary collaborations that result in successful applications for new HIV/AIDS research awards. Through EMBI, she also provides opportunities to HIV investigators at every stage of their career level to utilize infrastructure and resources of EMBI, including the opportunities to obtain the EMBI pilot awards in cognitive aging.

The HIV and Aging SWG was organized in February 2019 to meet the needs of an underrepresented area of research A HIV and Aging symposium held December 2019 by the SWG further linked the CFAR with the other centers and institutes on campus, drawing audience participation from the Evelyn F McKnight Brain Institute, Miami CTSI, FDOH, the SCCC and the Community Co-Leaders: Drs Suresh Pallikkuth, Tatjana Rundek, and Emmanuel Thomas