What's the Buzz? February 2023

Presentations, Events, Lectures & Workshops

Tiffany Beason, PhD, Assistant Professor; Jill Bohnenkamp, PhD, Assistant Professor; and Katie Trainor, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow, all with the Department of Psychiatry, hosted a virtual Youth Leadership Academy on November 29 and December 1, 2022. The event was part of a cooperative agreement with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention National Initiative to Advance Health Equity in K-12 Education. The two-part training brought together youth leaders from schools across the country participating in the one-year Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child Learning Collaborative. These youth leaders engaged with expert faculty from the National Center for School Mental Health and the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning to learn about best practices in school mental health, social emotional learning, and health equity.

Cara Felter, PT, DPT, MPH, NCS, PCS, Assistant Professor, Department of Physical Therapy & Rehabilitation Science, taught a two-part lecture series through Health Volunteers Overseas entitled, "Therapeutic Technologies in Neuro-Rehabilitation" to therapists practicing at the Christian Medical College (CMC), which was held in Vellore, India, on December 5, 2022. These lectures were part of a larger series of neurologic lectures shared with the therapists at CMC, which is a large teaching hospital serving patients with an array of neurologic and other conditions.

Roy Film PT, DPT, OCS, FAAOMPT, Assistant Professor, Department of Physical Therapy & Rehabilitation Science, was an invited panel participant for an American Academy of Orthopaedic Manual Physical Therapists (AAOMPT) webinar, which was held on January 9, 2023, entitled “Adding Social Determinants of Health & Health Disparities into an Already Jam-packed Curriculum.”

The annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) was held November 27-December 1, 2022, in Chicago, IL, where a number of faculty members with the Department of Diagnostic Radiology & Nuclear Medicine presented. In the session “On Call Primer for Residents – Don’t Miss Diagnosis: Tricky Trauma That Keeps You Up at Night:”

Omer Awan, MD, Professor, presented the national residency image case-based competition at RSNA and also gave a talk on “Social Media: Case Based Opportunities for Career Advancement.”
Uttam Bodanapally, MBBS, Associate Professor, presented, “Pearls of Chest Trauma.”
Alexis Boscak, MD, and Matthew Dattwyler, MD, both Assistant Professors, discussed spine trauma.
Kamyar Ghabili, MD, Post Doc, Yale/UMSOM, and Nariman Nezami, MD, Associate Professor, co-authored “Percutaneous Combined Chemical and Mechanical Necrosectomy for Walled-Off Pancreatic Necrosis: A Retrospective Analysis,” with Dr. Nezami presenting.
Clint Sliker, MD, Associate Professor, presented “Blunt Cerebrovascular Injury (BCVI) - Findings, Outcomes and Controversies.”

Grants & Contracts

Niel Constantine, PhD, Professor, Department of Pathology, and member of the Institute of Human Virology at UMSOM, has been awarded $555,475 for 21 months from Family Health International (FHI 360) for the USAID Global Health Supply Chain Quality Assurance Program. This award supports the continuation of Dr. Constantine's work to evaluate HIV, hepatitis, syphilis, and other diagnostic test kits sent from international locations.

Erika Davies, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Radiation Oncology, received $78,000 of funding from PureTech LYT 100, Inc., for “Pharmacokinetic (PK) Study of LYT-100.”

Thomas Ernst, Dr rer nat, Professor, Department of Diagnostic Radiology & Nuclear Medicine, was awarded a two-year, $243,253 subaward from The Regents of the University of California, San Diego for “NIH RECOVER: A Multi-site Observational Study of Post-Acute Sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 Infection in Pediatric Populations.”

Rao Gullapalli, PhD, MBA, Professor, Department of Diagnostic Radiology & Nuclear Medicine, was awarded a three-year, $1,025,802 U.S. Army Medical Research Acquisition Activity/Geneva Foundation Contract for “Comprehensive Assessment of Blast Traumatic Brain Injury in a Gyrencephalic Species: Biomechanical, MRI, Behavioral and Neuropathological Characterizations.”

Yajie Liang, MB, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Diagnostic Radiology & Nuclear Medicine, was awarded a two-year, $463,124 R21 grant from the National Institute on Aging for “Shedding Light on Functional Heterogeneity of Dementia-related Alpha-synuclein Strains.” Dr. Liang also received a two-year, $154,500 R03 grant from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke for “Intravital 2-photon Imaging the Integration of Transplanted Embryonic Neurons in a Mouse Model of Cerebral Ischemia at the Subacute Phase.”

Dirk Mayer, Dr rer nat, Professor, Department of Diagnostic Radiology & Nuclear Medicine, was awarded a 15-month, $193,617 R21 grant from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases for “Metabolic Imaging of Hyperpolarized 13C Pyruvate in Polycystic Kidney Disease.”

Phuoc Tran, MD, PhD, Professor, Department of Radiation Oncology, was named as contact PI/PD for “Tumor-barcoding Coupled with High-throughput Sequencing for Quantitative Radiogenomics of the Abscopal Response in NSCLC,” with Year 1 funding of $541,670.

Piotr Walczak, MD, PhD, Professor, Department of Diagnostic Radiology & Nuclear Medicine, was awarded a five-year, $2,986,702 R01 from the National Institute on Drug Abuse for “Image-guided Intra-arterial Administration of Antibody-releasing Glial Progenitors to Control the HIV CNS Reservoir.”

Ze Wang, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Diagnostic Radiology & Nuclear Medicine, was awarded a two-year, $441,886 R21 from the National Institute on Aging for “Assessing Chronic Pain Using Brain Entropy Mapping.”

Appointments

Roy Film PT, DPT, OCS, FAAOMPT, Assistant Professor, Department of Physical Therapy & Rehabilitation Science, has accepted an invitation from the Academy of Orthopaedic Physical Therapy to serve a three-year term on the newly created Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) Orthopaedic Faculty Workgroup. The primary charge of this group will be to develop and publish a recommended standardized core orthopaedic curriculum for all Commission on Accreditation in Physical Therapy Education (CAPTE) accredited DPT programs.

In the News

Vasken Dilsizian, MD, Professor, Department of Diagnostic Radiology & Nuclear Medicine, was interviewed on the subject of “Local Cancer Research and Treatment Initiatives” by Steve Cheveney, FOX-5 (WTTG-TV), Washington, DC, on January 12, 2023.

Scott Jerome, DO, FACC, FASNC, FSCCT, Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine, was quoted and interviewed in multiple local and national stories following the cardiac incident suffered by Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin. Coverage included WBFF, WUSA, Axios, WJZ-TV, The Baltimore Banner, The Baltimore Sun, WTTG-TV, WTOP-FM, and WJLA-TV, which aired January 3-4, 2023.

Publications

Odessa Addison, DPT, PhD, Associate Professor, and Vicki Gray, MPT, PhD, Assistant Professor, both with the Department of Physical Therapy & Rehabilitation Science, along with Victoria Marchese, PT, PhD, the Jane Kroh Satterfield Professor of Physical Therapy & Rehabilitation Science and Chair of the Department of Physical Therapy & Rehabilitation Science, are co-authors on the following publications: "Quantifying Muscle Strength, Size, and Neuromuscular Activation in Adolescent and Young Adult Survivors of Musculoskeletal Sarcoma: Identifying Correlates and Responses to Functional Strengthening," which was published in Knee and "Skeletal Muscle Measurements in Pediatric Hematology and Oncology: Essential Components to a Comprehensive Assessment," which was published in Children on January 5, 2023.

Stewart Becker, PhD, Associate Professor, and Jason Molitoris, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor, both with the Department of Radiation Oncology, were among the authors of “How Many Brain Metastases Can Be Treated with Stereotactic Radiosurgery Before the Radiation Dose Delivered to Normal Brain Tissue Rivals That Associated with Standard Whole Brain Radiotherapy?” which was published on January 11, 2023, ahead of print in the Journal of Applied Clinical Medical Physics.

Jill Bohnenkamp, PhD, Assistant Professor, Division of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, was among the co-authors of “A Roadmap to Equitable School Mental Health Screening,” which is available online and will be published in the February 2023 volume of the Journal of School Psychology.

Andrea Buchwald, PhD, Research Associate, Department of Pediatrics; along with Matthew Laurens, MD, MPH, Professor, Departments of Pediatrics and Medicine, and Miriam Laufer, MD, Professor, Departments of Pediatrics, Medicine, and Epidemiology & Public Health, all with the Center for Vaccine Development and Global Health, were among the co-authors of “Artemether-lumefantrine Efficacy Among Adults on Antiretroviral Therapy in Malawi,” which was published in the Malaria Journal on January 27, 2023.

Yufeng Cao, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow; along with Dan Kunaprayoon, MD, Assistant Professor, Junliang Xu, PhD, Assistant Professor, and Lui Ren, PhD, Professor, all with the Department of Radiation Oncology, were the authors of “AI-Assisted Clinical Decision Making (CDM) For Dose Prescription in Radiosurgery of Brain Metastases Using Three-Path Three-Dimensional CNN,” which was published in the December 2022 issue of Clinical and Translational Radiation Oncology.

France Carrier, PhD, Professor, Department of Radiation Oncology, was among the authors of “1H, 13C, and 15N Assignments of the mRNA Binding Protein hnRNP A18,” which was published on December 21, 2022, ahead of print in Biomolecular NMR Assignments.

Wengen Chen, MD, PhD, Professor, and Vasken Dilsizian, MD, Professor, both with the Department of Diagnostic Radiology & Nuclear Medicine, were co-authors on an invited review article entitled “Molecular Imaging of Valvular Diseases and Cardiac Device Infection,” which was published in the January 2023 issue of Circulation Cardiovascular Imaging.

Lynda Coughlan, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Center for Vaccine Development and Global Health, was among the co-authors of “Enhancing The Protection of Influenza Virus Vaccines with BECC TLR4 Adjuvant in Aged Mice,” which was published in Nature – Scientific Reports on January 13, 2023.

Alan Cross, MD, Professor, Department of Medicine, Center for Vaccine Development and Global Health, was among the co-authors of “Short-term Feeding of Defatted Bovine Colostrum Mitigates Inflammation in the Gut via Changes in Metabolites and Microbiota in a Chicken Animal Model” which was published in Animal Microbiome on January 26, 2023.

Derik Davis, MD, Associate Professor, Department of Diagnostic Radiology & Nuclear Medicine, was among the co-authors of “Combining Exercise, Protein Supplementation and Electric Stimulation to Mitigate Muscle Wasting and Improve Outcomes for Survivors of Critical Illness - The ExPrES Study,” which was published in the December 2022 issue of Heart and Lung: The Journal of Critical Care. Epub ahead of print.

David Dreizin, MD, Associate Professor, along with Matthew Peter Dattwyler, MD, Assistant Professor; Uttam Bodanapally, MBBS, Associate Professor; Elana Smith, MD, Assistant Professor; Guang Li, PhD, Assistant Professor; and Ze Wang, PhD, Associate Professor, all with the Department of Diagnostic Radiology & Nuclear Medicine, were among the co-authors of “Blunt Splenic Injury in Adults: Association between Volumetric Quantitative CT Parameters and Intervention,” which was published in the January 2023 issue of the Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery. Dr. Dreizin was the first author.

Amanda Driscoll, PhD, MHS, Assistant Professor, Department of Pediatrics, and Karen Kotloff, MD, Professor, Departments of Pediatrics, Medicine, and Epidemiology & Public Health, both with the Center for Vaccine Development and Global Health, were among the co-authors of “Clinical Risk Factors of Adverse Outcomes Among Women with COVID-19 in the Pregnancy and Postpartum Period: A Sequential, Prospective Meta-Analysis,” which was published in the February 2023 issue of the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

Jason Falvey, PT, DPT, PhD, GCS, Assistant Professor, Department of Physical Therapy & Rehabilitation Science, was a co-author of "Equitable Implementation of Innovations to Promote Successful Aging in Place," which was published in the Journal of American Geriatrics Society on December 15, 2022. He also was a co-author of "Effect of Variation in Early Rehabilitation on Hospital Readmission after Hip Fracture," which was published in the Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Journal on January 5, 2023.

Rao Gullapalli, PhD, MBA, Professor, Department of Diagnostic Radiology & Nuclear Medicine, was among the co-authors of “White Matter Integrity as a Mediator between Socioeconomic Status and Executive Function,” which was published in the November 2022 issue of Frontiers in Human Neuroscience.

Saikrishna Gourishetti, MD, Assistant Instructor, Department of Surgery, along with David Eisenman, MD, Associate Professor, Department of Otorhinolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery; Jonathan Ciriello, MD, PGY 4; and Prashant Raghavan, MD, Associate Professor, both with the Department of Diagnostic Radiology & Nuclear Medicine, were among the co-authors of “Posterior Fossa Volume in Idiopathic Intracranial Hypertension: a Magnetic Resonance Imaging-based Study,” which was published in the January 2023 issue of Acta Radiologica. Dr. Raghavan was the last author.

Amal Isaiah, MD, DPhil, Associate Professor, Department of Otorhinolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, along with Thomas Ernst, Dr rer nat, Professor; Hua Jun Liang, MBBS, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow; Meghann Ryan, MS, Graduate Research Assistant; Eric Cunningham, Senior Research Analyst; Pedro Rodriguez, MPH, Graduate Research Assistant; Miriam Menken, Graduate Research Assistant; and Linda Chang, MD, MS, Professor, all with the Department of Diagnostic Radiology & Nuclear Medicine, along with Gloria Reeves, MD, Associate Professor; Nancy Lever, PhD, Associate Professor; and Sarah Edwards, DO, Associate Professor, all with the Department of Psychiatry, were among the co-authors of “Associations between Socioeconomic Gradients and Racial Disparities in Preadolescent Brain Outcomes,” which was published in the December 2022 issue of Pediatric Research. Epub ahead of print. Dr. Chang was the last author.

Jean Jeudy, MD, Professor, Department of Diagnostic Radiology & Nuclear Medicine, was the author of the editorial “Interstitial Lung Abnormalities: The More We Learn, the Less We Know,” which was published in the December 2022 issue of Radiology. Epub ahead of print.

Kai Jiang, PhD, Assistant Professor; Michael Macfarlane, PhD, Assistant Professor; Sina Mossahebi, PhD, Associate Professor, and Mark Zakhary, PhD, Assistant Professor, all with the Department of Radiation Oncology, were the authors of “Evaluation of Treatment Planning System Accuracy in Estimating the Stopping-Power Ratio of Immobilization Devices for Proton Therapy,” which was published on January 2, 2023, ahead of print in the Journal of Applied Clinical Medical Physics.

Gaurav Jindal, MD, Associate Professor, and Dheeraj Gandhi, MBBS, Professor, both with the Department of Diagnostic Radiology & Nuclear Medicine, were among the co-authors of “Associations of Osteoarthritis with Thrombectomy Utilization and Outcomes for Large Vessel Acute Ischemic Stroke,” which was published in the December 2022 issue of Stroke. Epub ahead of print.

Matthew Laurens, MD, MPH, Professor, Departments of Pediatrics and Medicine; Emily Stucke, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow; Andrea Berry, MD, Associate Professor, Departments of Pediatrics and Medicine; Kirsten Lyke, MD, Professor, Department of Medicine; Shannon Takala-Harrison, PhD, Associate Professor, Departments of Medicine and Epidemiology & Public Health; and Mark Travassos, MD, MSc, Associate Professor, Departments of Pediatrics and Medicine, all with the Center for Vaccine Development and Global Health, were among the co-authors of “Malian Children Infected with Plasmodium Ovale and Plasmodium Falciparum Display Very Similar Gene Expression Profiles,” which was published in PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases on January 25, 2023.

Kirsten Lyke, MD, Professor, Department of Medicine, and Andrea Berry, MD, Associate Professor, Departments of Pediatrics and Medicine, both with the Center for Vaccine Development and Global Health, were among the co-authors of “Low-dose Intravenous and Subcutaneous CIS43LS Monoclonal Antibody for Protection Against Malaria (VRC 612 Part C): A Phase 1, Adaptive Trial,” which was published in Lancet – Infectious Diseases on January 25, 2023. Dr. Lyke was the lead author.

Robert McCann, PhD, Assistant Professor, Departments of Medicine and Microbiology & Immunology, Center for Vaccine Development and Global Health, was among the co-authors of “Community Participation in Habitat Management and Larviciding for the Control of Malaria Vectors in Southern Malawi,” which was published in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene on January 11, 2023.

Mark Mishra, MD, Associate Professor, Department of Radiation Oncology, was among the authors of “Body Composition and Mortality in Men Receiving Prostate Radiotherapy: A Pooled Analysis of NRG/RTOG 9406 and NRG/RTOG 0126,” which was published on December 29, 2022, ahead of print in Cancer.

Jason Molitoris, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Radiation Oncology, was the author of “Start Combining, Stop Comparing,” which appeared in the February 1, 2023, issue of the International Journal of Radiation Oncology, Biology, Physics.

George Morcos, MD, Clinical Research Assistant, and Omer Awan, MD, MPH, Professor, both with the Department of Diagnostic Radiology & Nuclear Medicine, were the co-authors of “Burnout in Medical School: A Medical Student’s Perspective,” which was published in December 2022 in Academic Radiology. Epub ahead of print.

Kathleen Neuzil, MD, MPH, FIDSA, Professor, Department of Medicine, Myron M. Levine, MD, DTPH Professor of Vaccinology and Director of the Center for Vaccine Development and Global Health, along with Karen Kotloff, MD, Professor, Departments of Pediatrics, Medicine, and Epidemiology & Public Health, Center for Vaccine Development and Global Health, were among the co-authors of “Rapid Development of an Integrated Network Infrastructure to Conduct Phase 3 COVID-19 Vaccine Trials,” which was published in the Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA) Network Open on January 3, 2023. Additionally, they were among the co-authors of “Immune correlates analysis of the PREVENT-19 COVID-19 vaccine efficacy clinical trial,” which was published in Nature – Communications on January 19, 2023.

Dr. Neuzil, along with Justin Ortiz, MD, MS, Professor, Department of Medicine, Center for Vaccine Development and Global Health, was among the co-authors of “Safety and Immunogenicity of Influenza A/H5N8 Virus Vaccine in Healthy Adults: Durability and Cross-reactivity of Antibody Responses” which was published in Clinical Infectious Diseases on January 5, 2023. Additionally, they were co-authors of “A Multi-Center, Controlled Human Infection Study of Influenza A (H1N1) pdm09 in Healthy Adults,” which was published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases on January 26, 2023.

Nariman Nezami, MD, Associate Professor, Department of Diagnostic Radiology & Nuclear Medicine, was the first author of “Percutaneous CT-guided Cryoneurolysis of the Intercostobrachial Nerve for Management of Post Mastectomy Pain Syndrome,” which was published in the December 2022 issue of the Journal of Vascular and Interventional Radiology. Epub ahead of print. He also was first author of “Percutaneous Endoscopy (Peritoneoscopy) and Lithotripsy for Retrieval of Dropped Gallstones Post-Cholecystectomy,” which was published in the November 2022 issue of Clinical Endoscopy, and was among the co-authors of “Lymphorrhea following Tunneled Femoral Central Venous Catheter Placement: Avoidance and Management of a Rare Complication,” which was published in the December 2022 issue of Seminars in Interventional Radiology and “Conventional vs. Drug-Eluting Beads Transarterial Chemoembolization for Unresectable Hepatocellular Carcinoma-A Propensity Score Weighted Comparison of Efficacy and Safety,” which was published in the November 2022 issue of Cancers (Basel).

Susana Portillo, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Pediatrics, Center for Vaccine Development and Global Health, was the author of “mSphere of Influence: Pertussis Vaccination and Antibodies in Mothers and Infants,” which was published in the mSphere Journal of the American Society for Microbiology on February 2, 2023.

Joanna Prout, PhD, Clinical Research Manager in the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, was lead author of “Application of a Model of Workforce Resilience to the Education Workforce: Expanding Opportunities for Support,” which was published in School Mental Health on November 22, 2022. Contributing authors from UMSOM include Jill Bohnenkamp, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Psychiatry; Dana Cunningham, PhD, Adjunct Assistant Professor, Department of Psychiatry; Perrin Robinson, MS, Lead Clinical Research Specialist; and Sharon Hoover, PhD, Professor, Department of Psychiatry, and Co-Director of the National Center for School Mental Health.

Eliot Siegel, MD, Professor, Department of Diagnostic Radiology & Nuclear Medicine, was among the co-authors of “Artificial Intelligence in Nuclear Medicine: Opportunities, Challenges, and Responsibilities Toward a Trustworthy Ecosystem,” which was published in the December 2022 issue of the Journal of Nuclear Medicine. Epub ahead of print.

Phuoc Tran, MD, PhD, Professor, Department of Radiation Oncology, was among the authors of “Analysis of a Biopsy-Based Genomic Classifier in High-Risk Prostate Cancer: Meta-Analysis of the NRG Oncology/RTOG 9202, 9413, and 9902 Phase III Randomized Trials,” which was published on December 31, 2022, ahead of print in the International Journal of Radiation Oncology, Biology, Physics. In the same journal, he was also among the authors of “Genomic Classifiers in Personalized Prostate Cancer Radiotherapy Approaches–A Systematic Review and Future Perspectives Based on International Consensus.”

Charles White, MD, Professor, Department of Diagnostic Radiology & Nuclear Medicine, was among the co-authors of “A Quick Reference Guide for Incidental Findings on Lung Cancer Screening CT Examinations,” which was published in the December 2022 issue of the Journal of the American College of Radiology. Epub ahead of print.

Paul Yi, MD, Assistant Professor, Department of Diagnostic Radiology & Nuclear Medicine, was the last author of “Visual Transformers and Convolutional Neural Networks for Disease Classification on Radiographs: A Comparison of Performance, Sample Efficiency, and Hidden Stratification,” which was published in the September 2022 issue of Radiology: Artificial Intelligence.

Michael Zarro, PT, DPT, SCS, CSCS, Assistant Professor, Department of Physical Therapy & Rehabilitation Science, is a co-author of the publication titled "Extensor Carpi Ulnaris Tendinopathy in Athletes: A Review of the Conservative and Rehabilitative Options," which was e-published on October 15, 2022, ahead of print in l Hand. He also was among the co-authors of “White Matter Integrity as a Mediator between Socioeconomic Status and Executive Function,” which was published in the November 2022 issue of Frontiers in Human Neuroscience.