Scholar News | UC Davis CTSC

May 1, 2023

CTSC Scholars and Staff Represented the CTSC and UC Davis Health at Translational Science 2023

Several CTSC scholars and staff attended the Association for Clinical and Translational Science (ACTS) Translational Science 2023 event in Washington, DC, last month. The meeting attracted approximately 1,200 attendees.

CTSC TL1 Scholar, Anna Awolope, B.S., received a Top Poster Presenter Award for her poster entitled, "Electronic Health Record Data and Topological Data Analysis to Predict Clinical Outcomes Post Myocardial Infarction".

Other CTSC scholars who presented their work included:

• TL1 Scholar, Pablo Juarez, B.S.
• TL1 Scholar, Dagoberto Pina, Jr., B.S.
• KL2 Scholar, Melanie Dove, Sc.D., M.P.H.

CTSC Biostatistics Program Manager and Principal Biostatistician, Sandra Taylor Ph.D., presented her work on a new investigative tool used to assess the quality of data prior to statistical analysis, Data Loofah.

June 8, 2023

Elysia Alvarez, CTSC KL2 Scholar, Receives Cancer Award

UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center has selected pediatric oncologist and clinical researcher Elysia Alvarez as the 2023 Christine and Helen Landgraf Memorial Research Award recipient.

Alvarez’s research focuses on improving the care of adolescents and young adults who have cancer by identifying barriers to accessing treatment. She also studies interventions to overcome these barriers to improve survival outcomes.

April 20, 2023

Geoanna M. Bautista, CTSC KL2 Scholar, Receives The Hartwell Foundation Individual Biomedical Research Award

Geoanna M. Bautista, assistant professor of pediatrics, has been selected to receive a 2022 Individual Biomedical Research Award from The Hartwell Foundation for her research on intestinal inflammation and dysmotility in babies with gastroschisis.

In her research, Bautista will use human specimens, rodent models, and a fetal gastroschisis lamb model uniquely available at UC Davis. She aims to build the foundation to develop a novel therapeutic target modulating gastroschisis-related intestinal inflammation and dysmotility (GRIID). Read More

September 1, 2022

Sheela Toprani Receives a Mentored Early Career Mental Health Award

Sheela Toprani, assistant professor in Neurology and Neurosurgery, and a KL2 scholar, was awarded a Mentored Early Career Mental Health Award. Toprani will study how neurosurgery for refractory epilepsy of the nondominant hemisphere impacts neuropsychological functions that are not well measured by current methods, such as executive function or emotional perception. Read More

April 6, 2022

Na'amah Razon, KL2 Scholar, Published in Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine

Na'amah Razon is an assistant professor of family and community medicine. In the following Q&A, Razon shares her findings from her recent study published in the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine. Read More

March 16, 2022

Julie Bidwell, KL2 Scholar, Transitions to K01 Award

Julie Bidwell, assistant professor with the Family Caregiving Institute at Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing, describes how the CTSC KL2 Career Development Program assisted her in obtaining a K01 award. Read more.

January 25, 2022

Melanie Dove, KL2 Scholar, Selected to Present at ACTS Annual Conference

Melanie Dove, assistant professor in the Department of Public Health Sciences at UC Davis Health, has been invited to present a poster at the Association for Clinical and Translational Science (ACTS) annual conference in April of this year.

Dove conducts research on the impact tobacco control policies have on health behavior. At the ACTS conference, she plans to present findings from a research project looking at the impact local flavored tobacco sales restrictions in California have on youth e-cigarette use. Results suggest that these policies were not associated with a decrease in e-cigarette use one year post policy. She also found that students reported an easier time accessing e-cigarettes and an increase in youth using marijuana in an e-cigarette, which may explain why we did not find a decrease in use. The UC Davis CTSC KL2 Mentored Career Development Program provided support to conduct this research.

January 21, 2022

Elysia Alvarez, KL2 Scholar, Published in Lancet Oncology

KL2 scholar Elysia Alvarez is the first author of a study published on Dec. 3 in Lancet Oncology. The manuscript presents an analysis of results from the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2019. With a focus on the outcome of disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs), the study informs global cancer control measures in adolescents and young adults (aged 15-39 years). Alvarez, assistant professor of clinical pediatrics with UC Davis Health, is dedicated to improving survival outcomes in adolescents and young adults with cancer. Studies focusing on incidence and mortality, while important, do not always capture the entire impact of a disease on a population. This study, focused on disability-adjusted life year burden, allows for a comprehensive analysis of the impact of cancer in the young population as students or starting their careers and families. In addition to this work, Alvarez is exploring the experience of adolescents and young adults with cancer in Latin America and the barriers they face to care in hopes of improving outcomes in this unique population.

June 1, 2023

Hui (Amy) Chen Named Dean's Scholar in Women's Health Research for BIRCWH K12 Program

Hui Amy Chen joins the Building Interdisciplinary Research Careers in Women’s Health (BIRCWH K12) program as the newest Dean’s Scholar in Women’s Health Research (DSWHR) as of June 1, 2023. A recent graduate of the UC Davis Mentored Clinical Research Training Program (MCRTP), Chen's project focus will be on a Feasibility Pilot Study of a Standardized Extract of Cultured Lentinula edodes Mycelia (AHCC) on Quality of Life for Ovarian Cancer Patients on Adjuvant Chemotherapy. Among gynecologic cancers, ovarian cancer has the highest mortality rate and quality of life is affected by both the disease and its treatment. Active Hexose Correlated Compound (AHCC), a shiitake mushroom extract, has early data showing improved chemotherapy side effects and quality of life. The aim of the study is to examine the feasibility of conducting a randomized controlled trial to evaluate the effects of AHCC on health-related quality of life (HRQOL) in ovarian cancer patients undergoing adjuvant chemotherapy.

June 15, 2022

Alicia Agnoli is Contributing Author on a Recently Published Study on Opioid Dose Reduction

Alicia Agnoli, assistant professor of family and community medicine, contributed to a study that suggests the increased rates of overdose and mental health crisis observed during the first year after opioid dose tapering persist through the second year. The study was published June 13 in JAMA Network Open. Read More

June 10, 2022

Victoria Lyo Named Women's Health Research Scholar for BIRCWH K12 Program

Victoria Lyo, assistant professor in the Foregut, Metabolic, and General Surgery division was appointed the Dean’s Scholar in Women’s Health Research by the UC Davis School of Medicine’s Building Interdisciplinary Research Careers in Women’s Health (BIRCWH) program. Lyo joined the faculty three years ago after finishing a fellowship in Advanced GI Minimally Invasive and Bariatric Surgery at Oregon Health & Sciences University. She is a San Francisco native, and after undergraduate school at Wellesley College, she completed medical school and general surgery training at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF). As a medical student, she built her research foundation as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Medical scholar. As a resident, she received a Master of Translational Medicine investigating the use of silver microparticles with fibrin sealant to prevent hernia formation.

This five-year mentored K-type research award allows Lyo to further her research in Sex Differences in Response to Bariatric Surgery. She is studying how microbiome and metabolomic differences may contribute to sex-specific outcomes of surgery with the help of her mentor team Mohamed Ali, Sean Adams, Bethany Cummings, and Anne Schafer. This award builds upon her research grant from the Society of Gastrointestinal and Endoscopic Surgeons and allows her to develop her other interests in obesity-related fatty liver disease and its response to bariatric surgery. Personally, she enjoys spending time with her family and indulging her young son’s obsession with cars.

August 3, 2021

BIRCWH Scholar, Alicia Agnoli's Study on Opioid Dose Tapering Published in August Issue of JAMA

Alicia Agnoli is an assistant professor of Family and Community Medicine at UC Davis School of Medicine. She is first author of a study published Aug. 3 in JAMA, in which a team of UC Davis Health researchers examined the potential risks of opioid dose tapering. Their study found that patients on stable opioid therapy who had their doses tapered had significantly higher rates of overdose and mental health crisis, compared to patients without dose reductions. Read More

April 30, 2024

Erin Brown Receives The Hartwell Foundation Individual Biomedical Research Award

Erin Brown, a Paul Calabresi Clinical Oncology K12 Program scholar and pediatric surgeon, has received an award from The Hartwell Foundation to develop a stem cell treatment to target Neuroblastoma, the leading cause of cancer death in children under the age of five.

Brown is one of only ten scientists selected to receive the 2024 Individual Biomedical Research Award. This prestigious award funds early-stage, innovative biomedical research that benefits children in the United States. She will get $100,000 per year for three years. Read more

September 1, 2022

Orwa Aboud Presents at 2022 Annual Conference on CNS Clinical Trials and Brain Metastases

Orwa Aboud, assistant professor of neurology and PC K12 scholar, presented on, "Incidence of intracranial hemorrhage in glioma patients with venous thromboembolism converted from LMWH to Apixaban", at the CNS Clinical Trials & Brain Metastases Conference in Canada. The goal of this annual conference is to provide a deeper dive into the area of neuro-oncology clinical trials, to understand how to make more significant improvements in survival and quality of life of patients with primary and metastatic cancers of the central nervous system.

September 7, 2021

Chengfei Liu Receives R37 National Cancer Institute (NCI) Award

Chengfei Liu has received a $2 million R37 National Cancer Institute (NCI) award for prostate cancer research. Dr. Liu is the first early-stage cancer investigator at UC Davis to receive an R37 award. Dr. Liu was a dean’s scholar in the UC Davis Paul Calabresi Career Development K12 program, which was of immense importance in his trajectory toward the R37. K12 program director and Comprehensive Cancer Center Director, Dr. Primo Lara said, “This award will help him further develop his career and his research, while making important contributions to our understanding of what’s driving resistant prostate cancer.”

November 7, 2019

Paul Calabresi K12 Scholar - Guobao Wang, Awarded "Trailblazer" Grant for Hybrid Imaging Research

Guobao Wang, associate professor in the Department of Radiology, has received a "Trailblazer R21" grant ($628,000 over three years) from the National Institutes of Health and National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIH/NIBIB).

With this grant, Wang will develop the algorithms and test the feasibility of a new method combining positron emission tomography (PET) and X-ray computed tomography (CT) scanning. The proposed method provides new applications for human molecular imaging and adds spectral CT imaging as a dimension of information to clinical PET/CT.