Announcing the 2022 ASPIRE Program Team Awards
The School of Medicine’s Program to Advance Physician Scientists and Translational Research is pleased to announce its 2022 CU ASPIRE Program awardees. The CU ASPIRE Program is designed to facilitate collaborative research groups working on unmet needs in basic science or clinical medicine that can only be addressed by a team of investigators. The program supports milestone-driven collaborations between investigators across campus with the goal of submitting a program project or other large multi-investigator grant proposals to external funding agencies. The CU ASPIRE program is co-led by David Schwartz, MD, and Lori Sussel, PhD and will support the following projects.
ASPIRE Program Teams
Team 1: Interaction of IFN/IL-36, succinate and palmitic acid pathways in obese asthma
The team led by Dr. Holguin seeks to understand the interactions of IFN-g/IL-36, succinate and palmitic acid pathways in the airways of obese asthmatics. This project is a collaboration between the Severe Asthma Program at the University of Colorado, Anschutz Medical Campus and National Jewish Health. The ASPIRE grant will catalyze an already productive interdisciplinary collaboration between Chris Evans PhD, Hong Wei Chu PhD, Max Seibold PhD and Fernando Holguin MD MPH, to understand how obesity-related metabolic changes in airway epithelial cells link to inflammatory and paracrine mechanisms that ultimately promote bronchial hyperresponsiveness.
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Fernando Holguin, MD, MPH
Professor
Department of Medicine, Division of Pulmonary Sciences and Critical Care
Dr. Holguin is a Professor of Medicine, Epidemiology and Pediatrics. His research focuses on the intersection of metabolism and airway inflammation in obese asthmatics. Dr. Holguin and his lab have uncovered new mechanistic paradigms in nitric oxide (NO) airway metabolism that explain why obese asthmatics are more sever and less responsive.
Chris Evans, PhD
Professor
Department of Medicine, Division of Pulmonary Sciences and Critical Care
Dr. Chris Evans is a Professor and Associate Division Head for Basic Research in the Division of Pulmonary Sciences and Critical Care. His research focuses on the polymeric mucins glycoproteins MUC5AC,
MUC5B, and their mammalian orthologs.
Hong Wei Chu, PhD
Professor
Department of Pulmonary Sciences, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine
National Jewish Health
Dr. Chu is a Professor of Medicine at National Jewish Health. His research focuses on basic and translational studies in asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and cystic fibrosis (CF).
Max Seibold, PhD
Professor and Director of Regenerative Medicine and Genome Editing Program, Center for Genes, Environment & Health
National Jewish Health
Dr. Seibold is a Professor in Pediatrics and the Center for Genes, Environment, and Health. His research focuses on asthma and allergic diseases.
Team 2: Mechanistic understanding and therapeutic targeting of TBI-caused vision loss
The unifying scientific theme of the team led by Dr. Nagaraj is to understand molecular mechanisms and develop targeted therapies to prevent TBI-caused RGC death with the eventual goal of preserving vision in TBI patients. Their multidisciplinary project combines the expertise of three established investigators and is built on the findings from their ongoing collaboration. With the CU-ASPIRE funding, Drs. Nagaraj, Nam, Poleg-Polsky, and Huang will investigate mechanisms of vision loss from traumatic brain injury (TBI) and develop viral-based methods to preserve vision after TBI. They will also examine the role of excitotoxicity in TBI-induced retinal damage and the introduction of non-invasive visual acuity tests, as well as the efficacy and mechanisms of CtBP inhibitors in preventing TBI-caused retinal ganglion cell death.
Ram H. Nagaraj, PhD
Professor
Department of Ophthalmology and Pharmaceutical Sciences
Dr. Nagaraj investigates biochemical mechanisms of presbyopia, secondary cataracts and glaucoma. His laboratory is developing peptide and gene therapies to prevent retinal ganglion cell death to save vision in glaucoma.
Mi-Hyun Nam, PhD
Research Instructor
Department of Ophthalmology
Dr. Nam’s vision research focuses on the
efficacy students of preserving RGCs via intravitreal delivery of
peptide- and viral vector-based therapeutics in rodent glaucoma models, and
isolation and culture of primary RGCs.
Alon Poleg-Polsky, MD, PhD
Assistant Professor
Department of Physiology and Biophysics
Dr. Poleg-Polsky studies the mechanisms enabling reliable neuronal
computations with emphasis on the role of NMDA receptors and nonlinear
dendritic signal integration. He combines theoretical and advanced experimental
techniques to explore how single cells and neuronal networks in the retina
function in health and under pathophysiological conditions.
Mingxia Huang, PhD
Associate Professor of Dermatology
Dr. Huang investigates transcriptional regulation of innate immune response using mouse models of TBI and inflammatory skin disorders. Her lab is developing immunomodulatory agents that target transcriptional coregulators CtBP1 and CtBP2. Using a mouse model of mild TBI that mimics hallmarks of human concussion, her group has shown that postinjury treatment with CtBP inhibitors reduces neuroinflammation and improves neurological outcomes after single or repeated injuries.
Team 3: Mechanisms of immune protection and pathology by lymph node stromal cells
The team lead by Dr. Tamburini builds on established collaborations between CU Anschutz investigators (Tamburini, Morrison, Guthmiller, and Hesselberth) to (i) define mechanisms of interplay between LNSCs and immune responses, (ii) understand how viruses co-opt LNSCs to thwart immune responses, (iii) determine the consequences of antigen retention by LNSCs to B cell and T cell responses, and (iv) develop and apply the latest molecular tools to understand LNSC heterogeneity and function. The approaches will synergize to yield an in depth understanding of the consequences of LNSCs to immunity following infection and immunization.
Beth Tamburini, PhD
Associate Professor
Department of Medicine, Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology
Dr. Tamburini is an Associate Professor of Medicine and Immunology and Microbiology in the University of Colorado School of Medicine. The Tamburini laboratory investigates the cellular and molecular mechanisms that drive lymphatic and lymphoid tissue stromal cell contributions to immunity following vaccination, infection and in chronic disease.
Thomas E. (Tem) Morrison, PhD
Professor
Department of Immunology and Microbiology
Dr. Morrison is a Professor of Immunology and Microbiology in the University of Colorado School of Medicine. The Morrison laboratory investigates the molecular pathogenesis and immunity of emerging RNA virus infection, including alphaviruses, coronaviruses, and flaviviruses, using genetic strategies, molecular, cellular, and immunological approaches, and mouse models of acute and chronic virus infections.
Jenna Guthmiller, PhD
Assistant Professor
Department of Immunology and Microbiology
Dr. Guthmiller is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Immunology and Microbiology in the University of Colorado School of Medicine. The Guthmiller lab studies the development and maintenance of protective and aberrant humoral immune responses using molecular and cellular approaches and mouse models of infectious diseases.
Jay Hesselberth, PhD
Associate Professor
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics
Dr. Hesselberth is an Associate Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics in the University of Colorado School of Medicine. The Hesselberth lab develops and applies new molecular technologies to enhance single-cell and spatial transcriptomics.
Team 4: The Epithelial-Immune Landscape and Therapeutic Targets in Pulmonary Premalignancy
The team led by Dr. Miller is focused on identifying factors within the lung that determine the evolution of premalignant lesions to either spontaneous regression or progression to cancer. The primary objective of the program is to gain a mechanistic understanding of how alterations in epithelial progenitors and immune cells that occur during premalignancy determine long-term outcomes. These studies are powered by parallel investigation of: i) at risk patients, either followed for the natural history of lesions or enrolled in chemoprevention trials and ii) mechanistic studies using mouse models of lung carcinogenesis and ex vivo precision cut lung slices. By integrating a team of experienced investigators with complementary expertise and established collaborations, this program provides unique opportunities to gain cellular and molecular insights from patient trials (bedside to bench) and to identify new therapeutic targets to limit pulmonary premalignancy and reduce lung cancer risk (bench to bedside). The ASPIRE grant will promote new initiatives within the Colorado Pulmonary Premalignancy Program comprised of Moumita Ghosh, PhD (epithelial stem cell biology), Eric Clambey, PhD (Immunology), Dan Merrick, MD (molecular pathology), Meredith Tennis, PhD (cancer biology and preclinical models), Robert Keith, MD (mouse models and clinical trials) and York Miller, MD (clinical trials and premalignancy). Their investigators are members of the Pulmonary Sciences and Critical Care Medicine Division, Department of Medicine (University of Colorado and Rocky Mountain Regional VAMC), and Departments of Pathology and Anesthesiology.
York Miller, MD
Professor and Thomas L. Petty Chair of Lung Research
Department of Medicine, Division of Pulmonary Sciences and Critical Care
Dr. Miller is the Thomas L. Petty Chair and Professor of Medicine. His research focuses on lung cancer chemoprevention, premalignancy and early diagnosis.
Eric Clambey, PhD
Assistant Professor
Department of Anesthesiology
Dr. Clambey is an assistant professor in the Department of Anesthesiology. His research focuses on investigating the dynamic interface between the immune system and two major types of immune challenge: virus infection and cancer.
Moumita Ghosh, PhD
Associate Professor
Department of Medicine, Division of Pulmonary Sciences and Critical Care
Dr. Ghosh is an associate professor in the Division of Pulmonary Sciences and Critical Care. Her research focuses on understanding the role of airway stem/progenitor cells during lung health disease.
Robert (Bob) Keith, MD
Professor
Department of Medicine, Division of Pulmonary Sciences and Critical Care
Associate Chief of Staff-Research, Rocky Mountain Regional VA Medical Center
Dr. Keith is a professor in the Department of Medicine, Division of Pulmonary Sciences and Critical Care. His research focuses on lung cancer chemoprevention, which includes a clinical trials team focused on the medical prevention of lung cancer.
Daniel Merrick, MD
Associate Professor
Department of Pathology
Dr. Merrick is an associate professor in the Department of Pathology. His research focuses on premalignant lesions of the lung and lung carcinoma.
Meredith Tennis, PhD
Assistant Professor
Department of Medicine, Division of Pulmonary Sciences and Critical Care
Dr. Tennis is an assistant professor in the Division of Pulmonary Sciences and Critical care. Her research focuses on understanding premalignant lung lesions, investigating lung cancer interception, and identifying markers for targeted application of chemoprevention.