Scholar Profiles

Wilbur Chen, M.D.: Dr. Chen completed his internal medicine residency at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center and a fellowship in infectious diseases at the University of Maryland. He also finished a post-doctoral fellowship in vaccinology at the Center for Vaccine Development at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and is now an Assistant Professor in the Division of Geographic Medicine. His current clinical research involves a number of vaccine trials in the elderly, which include both experimental vaccines against Avian (H5N1) influenza and seasonal influenza. Dr. Chen’s laboratory research involves the study of an endotoxin-based vaccine as a potential therapy against gram-negative infections and the role of Toll-like receptors (TLR) in anti-bacterial host defense. The MCRCDP will be allowing Dr. Chen to study dendritic cells of the elderly and the use of TLR agonist-based adjuvants as a mechanism for reversing the immune dysfunction which occurs during aging, termed immune-senescence. His long term goal is to develop newer generation vaccines which would be tailored for the elderly, a population that generally exhibits the highest morbidity and mortality from infections and responds poorest to vaccination.

Coleen Damcott, Ph.D.: Dr. Damcott’s primary research interests involve the molecular basis and genetics of complex diseases in humans.  In particular, she is interested in the field of nutrigenomics or the role of diet and nutrition in genetic susceptibility to disease.  For the MCRCDP program, Dr. Damcott proposed a translational genomics project that involves genetic variation in perilipin (PLIN), an adipocyte phosphoprotein that coats intracellular lipid droplets and regulates lipolysis.  The study is designed to advance our knowledge of the role of genetic variation in the PLIN gene in lipid metabolism and its interaction with diet by examining the mechanism linking PLIN polymorphisms to hypertriglyceridemia and insulin resistance.  Understanding the link between PLIN polymorphisms and circulating triglyceride levels will provide new insights into the pathophysiological basis of diseases such as obesity, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. The MCRCDP provides the educational opportunities and the multidisciplinary mentor-based research environment required to integrate knowledge and expertise in the fields of molecular genetics/genomics, clinical investigation, human nutrition and fat cell biology. See Dr. Damcott's bio.

Jon Furuno, Ph.D.:  Dr. Furuno is an Assistant Professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in the Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine.  He received a B.S. in Zoology from the University of Rhode Island and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Epidemiology from the University of Maryland.  His research focuses on infectious disease epidemiology including studies of infections caused by antibiotic-resistant bacteria, development of novel, effective, and cost-effective infection control interventions to reduce transmission and acquisition of these bacteria, and epidemiologic methods to study these infections.  Dr. Furuno’s research on antibiotic resistance is centered around, but not limited to, the study of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in hospitalized patients, residents of long-term care facilities, and in the community.  He is also interested in the development of novel, effective, and cost-effective infection control interventions to reduce transmission of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.  Dr. Furuno works closely with Drs. Anthony Harris and Eli Perencevich, on epidemiologic methods to assess risk factors and outcomes of infectious diseases and optimize use of antimicrobial agents.  Recent topics of study have included use of quasi-experimental studies, conjoint analysis, and prediction rules.  As part of the theMCRCDP K12 Scholars Program, Dr. Furuno will be working with Drs. Harris and Jay Magaziner to apply his previous work in the acute-care setting to similar projects in the long-term care/nursing home setting.

Jeanne Geiger-Brown, Ph.D.: Dr. Jeanne Geiger Brown’s research interests are at the intersection of occupational epidemiology, sleep medicine, and neuropsychology.  Her research project will examine patterns of sleep for registered nurses working successive 12 hour shifts, and relate this to sleepiness, fatigue, and neurocognitive performance.  Sustained work days (shifts lasting 12 hours or more) have become common in nursing, especially in combination with compressed schedules (e.g. three 12-hour days in succession).  This work schedule limits the opportunity for sleep, and can lead to fatigue-related accidents, injuries, and long-term adverse health effects.  As a faculty member of the Work and Health Research Center in the School of Nursing she and her colleagues are dedicated to improving health through research, education, advocacy, and practice directed at the prevention of occupational causes of illnesses and injuries.

Jennifer (Kristie) Johnson, Ph.D.:

Wendy Lane, M.D. 

Ebere Onukwugha, Ph.D.: Dr. Onukwugha’s work is focused on the relationships between health care decisions and costs/outcomes as well as the statistical models used to analyze these relationships using observational data.  She is also very interested in health disparities and cost-effectiveness analysis.  Previous work has examined disparities in discharge disposition among stroke patients, the variations in cost-effectiveness of treatment for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease at the Veterans Health Administration, and the statistical modeling of binary outcomes using observational data.  Her primary interest in patient compliance behavior is reflected in her MCRCDP projects, in which she will estimate the incremental cost of hospital discharges against medical advice using observational data and examine the reasons behind discharges against medical advice using primary data.  Understanding the costs and reasons behind discharges against medical advice will benefit hospital institutions and patients alike by informing individual and collective efforts to reduce avoidable discharges against medical advice.   Ultimately, this research will allow improved interventions aimed at reducing discharges AMA and avoiding detrimental health and cost consequences

Afshin Parsa, M.D.:

Gloria Reeves, M.D.: Dr. Reeves’ research project is to investigate the metabolic side effects of antipsychotic treatment of children, using state of the art assessment tools to study changes in insulin sensitivity, fat mass, and lipid profile as well as food intake and activity monitoring.  Antipsychotic medications are increasingly being used to treat young children with severe aggression and mood instability, yet data on side effects is limited for prepubertal children to guide clinical care.  This project is a vehicle for her to learn about an important psychopharmacology issue in child psychiatry, but also an opportunity to receive training on metabolic assessment techniques.  Her future goals are to combine her expertise in childhood development and psychiatry with newly developed skills in metabolic assessment to study issues related to obesity and mental illness in young children. 

Mohammad Sajadi, M.D.: Dr. Sajadi's research interest involves detailed characterization of a cohort of individuals with HIV-1 infection who can naturally, without  medication, suppress HIV-1 replication to very low levels (HIV-1 Natural  Viral Suppressors). As opposed to the vast majority of other human  infections caused by a variety of bacteria, parasites, and viruses, to date there have been no documented cases of individuals being able to  clear HIV-1 infection once infected. The cohort of patients that will be  assembled in this study will represent one extreme outcome of HIV-1  infection (where individuals are infected but are able to successfully control infection). The aim of this study is to better elucidate the mechanisms of viral suppression in these individuals.

Mark Scheper, D.D.S., Ph.D.:

Eric Thorn, M.D.:

James Waltz, Ph.D.: Dr. Waltz’s educational background is in experimental psychology, with concentrations in cognitive science at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.  He received his PhD from UCLA in 1999, submitting a doctoral thesis on the cognitive effects of damage to the brain’s frontal lobes.  Following graduate school, he did postdoctoral work in Germany, at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research, studying the physiological basis of learning and memory in humans and nonhuman primates.  He  came to the University of Maryland to apply what he learned to the study of schizophrenia, a serious mental disorder characterized by a collection of psychotic “positive” symptoms, and a range of cognitive and motivational deficits.   He conducts his present research at the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center, a division of the UMB Department of Psychiatry, and at the National Institute on Drug Abuse.  His work focuses on brain systems involved in reward-based decision-making and learning, and the K12 award is an instrumental part of his training as a clinical researcher.  The work is necessarily multidisciplinary, involving the combination of clinical, physiological, and experimental behavioral data.  The goal of his research is, through the use of behavioral experiments and functional neuroimaging techniques, to understand how dysfunction in the brain’s reward systems – dopamine systems in particular – contributes to psychopathology in schizophrenia, as well as the effects that antipsychotic medications have on these systems.

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