URMC / Clinical & Translational Science Institute / Stories / July 2016 / Announcing the Winners of a New Collaborative Genomics Pilot Award Program

Announcing the Winners of a New Collaborative Genomics Pilot Award Program

The University of Rochester Medical Center is teaming up with the State University of New York at the University of Buffalo (SUNY UB) on a collaborative genomics project. Both URMC and SUNY UB have strengths in bioinformatics, high performance computing, basic and translational genomics, including NIH funded Clinical and Translational Science Awards.

CTSI University of Rochester Medical Center University at Buffalo The State University of New York

To accelerate collaboration between our institutions, a URMC-SUNY UB Collaborative Genomics Pilot Award Program has been implemented. The pilot awards will provide one year of seed funding to research teams with dual principle investigators – one from each institution – who are interested in understanding the genetic basis of diseases.

The winning proposals show promise to make rapid progress over the next year and build upon established strengths at both institutions. The overall goal of this pilot funding is to help researchers obtain further federal or foundation funding and to take advantage of opportunities for regional collaboration across NY state.

Two projects were selected for funding:

The Role of CCR2 Blockade in Patients with Locally Advanced Pancreas Cancer

David C. Linehan, M.D., professor and chair of Surgery, University of Rochester Medical Center
Scott A. Gerber, Ph.D., assistant professor of Surgery, University of Rochester Medical Center
Joseph Barbi, Ph.D., assistant professor of Immunology, Roswell Park Cancer Institute

Epigenetics profiling of Exacerbation Susceptibility in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

Patricia Sime M.D., professor of Medicine, University of Rochester Medical Center
Sanjay Sethi M.D., professor and chief of Pulmonary, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine, University at Buffalo, SUNY

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The project described in this article will be supported by the University of Rochester CTSA award number UL1 TR002001 from the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences of the National Institutes of Health.

Michael Hazard | 7/8/2016