Congratulations to Zahra Amirkhanzadeh Barandouzi, our PhD student, and her committee members; Dr. Xiaomei Cong, Dr. Angela Starkweather and Dr. Wendy Henderson; on their grant award from American Nurses Foundation (ANF) for the proposal titled“Biomarkers of Emotional Distress in IBS Patients”.

The purpose of this pilot study is to evaluate the role of the brain-gut microbiome axis in comorbidity between emotional distress and Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).

The outcome of this study will shed light on the underlying pathophysiology of this comorbidity and translate the findings into innovative clinical strategies to improve treatment outcomes in IBS patients.

 

Congratulations to Zahra Amirkhanzadeh Barandouzi, and Jie Chen, PhD students who have received the second set of CAMP-PRIM funds for their pilot research studies. Zahra has received a $2000 award for her project titled“Biomarkers of emotional distress and pain in IBS patients”. Jie has also received a $2000 award for his study titled “Phenotyping and Biomarkers of Pain in Older Adults with Heart Failure: A Pilot Study”.

A successful four-day “Microbiome Sequence and Statistical Analysis” workshop took place at UConn School of Nursing.

Dr. Kendra Maas, Ph.D., the lecturer of the workshop introduced two powerful open-source software Mothur and R.

A range of key topics was covered in the workshop including:

• Experiment design considerations
• Assessing data quality
• Cleaning sequencing data
• OTU methods
• Alpha and beta diversity
• Multivariate statistical analyses
• Data visualization
• Data management

The workshop sponsored by UConn Department of Statistics; School of Nursing & Center for Advancement in Managing Pain (CAMP).

Many thanks to the participants, professors, and sponsors involved in the event.

Congratulations to Louise Reagan, Ph.D., ANP-BC, APRN, assistant professor, and her team Rick Laguerre, MS, and Colleen Gallagher, MA, Connecticut Department of Corrections, for their highlighted research study in “American Diabetes Association” and “Medscape“. Dr. Reagan’ study has highlighted the importance of using diabetes survival skills (DSS) intervention in the self-management of diabetes among men leaving prison and transitioning to the communities.

Congratulations to Dr. Ruth Lucas, and co-investigators Drs. Divya Ramesh and Heather Evans (University of Saint Joseph, Connecticut) on their $15,000 grant award from the American Nurses Foundation (ANF) for their proposal ANTENATAL CANNABIS USE: IMPLICATIONS FOR SYMPTOM MANAGEMENT AND RISK-TAKING. The purpose of this exploratory study is to describe cannabis use in pregnancy with a focus on pregnancy-related symptoms, social and emotional risk factors, and risk-taking behaviors. The proposed study will assess the feasibility of the nursing team to collect data in pregnant women who are cannabis users. The outcome of this study will identify modifiable factors of pregnancy related symptoms, social or emotional support or risk-taking behaviors, thus allowing for early intervention in this population.

Congratulations to Dr. Angela Starkweather, Professor and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, and Director of the P20 Center for Accelerating Precision Pain Self-Management who has received a subaward of $68,149 from the University of Maryland at Baltimore (UMB) for a newly funded NINR study Physiological, psychological, and genomic factors that predict the transition from acute to chronic pain in patients with traumatic lower extremity fracture.  Dr. Starkweather will work with Drs. Renn and Dorsey of UMB and Dr. Griffioen of University of Delaware to examine physiological, psychological, clinical, and sociodemographic factors predictive of chronic pain phenotype following lower extremity fracture.  In addition, they will test the hypothesis that differences in gene expression will be associated with the chronic pain phenotype following lower extremity fracture.  Their analyses will examine how changes in gene expression differ between extreme phenotypes at baseline and 52 weeks, and construct a database of altered gene expression profiles as well as novel therapeutic targets and pathways for better pain management.

Congratulations to Rebecca Acabchuk, PhD and Sharon Casavant MSN, RN who have received the first set of CAMP-PRIM funds for their pilot research studies. Dr. Acabchuk has received a $1500 award for her project “Informing Mindfulness Studies for Pain and Addiction Recovery: Investigating the Inflammatory Pathway”. She will be working with her advisor Dr. Blair Johnson (Psychology) to examine salivary C-Reactive Protein levels pre- and post-mindfulness intervention among a sample of college students. Sharon Casavant has received $1000 grant for her study “Predicting Neurodevelopmental Outcomes of Preterm Infants Using Multi-Omic Measures (PRENOP): A Pilot Study of Gene Expression”. She will be working with her advisor Dr. Xiaomei Cong (Nursing) to examine  changes in gene expression at 2 time points and investigate associations between gene expression and neurodevelopmental outcomes as a result of painful procedures in preterm infants.

Congratulations to our PhD student Mallory Perry elected to be the student member representative on the Board of the International Society of Nurses in Genetics (ISONG)!

Pain researcher and geneticist, Dr. Erin Young, visits with Jeff Blocker about his experience with visceral pain, a condition he has suffered with for over 20 years. At the age of 21, Jeff had a cervical spinal cord injury while serving in the military. Since that time, he’s experienced neuropathic and visceral pain, but for him the visceral pain is at times unbearable. Approximately 70% of patients with spinal cord injury experience chronic pain with at least one third having severely intense pain that impacts mood, function and quality of life. As part of her translational research program, Dr. Young uses rodent models to study the c

ellular mechanisms of visceral pain and also collects specimens from humans to investigate genetic variants that may contribute to visceral pain in patients with spinal cord injuries, irritable bowel syndrome and inflammatory bowel disorders. Her meeting with Jeff, one of the Center for Advancement in Managing Pain’s community partners, provided her with some insights on his experience with visceral pain, and some added inspiration for continuing her work in this area. For more information about Dr. Young’s lab, visit her webpage and Jeff’s story can be found at the following link.

 

The Connecticut Pain Consortium will focus on a problem of national importance: the need for fundamental and translational research on the causes and manifestations of pain, pain management, and education about pain and its ramifications. CAMP member and Professor Reinhard Laubenbacher, who will lead the consortium and is a joint faculty member at UConn Health and The Jackson Laboratory, said the consortium will focus on researching the causes of pain, as well as pain management and how to translate that research into new therapies. Read more at this link , the Courant and Hartford Business websites.