Grant and Contract Awards

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NEW & TRANSFER AWARDS

(New grants, funding transferred from a PI’s previous institution, and NIH competitive renewal funding)

Julie Akers (PI) – College of Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Sciences
Asha AI
“Assessing the Use of a Remote Care Mobile Application by Neurodegenerative Disease Patients and Their Family Caregivers”
This study involves a pilot test of Asha Care, a voice-enabled remote care solution designed to empower older adults and those who are physically disabled to function more effectively while enabling family caregivers and medical care teams to better coordinate caregiving and medical care activities. In collaboration with the Steve Gleason Institute for Neuroscience’s Adaptive Technology Center, the researcher will recruit 100 patients with neurodegenerative disease and their caregivers/family members to participate in the study. Each patient/caregiver pair will use the Asha Care mobile app for 90 days. Surveys administered before, during and after the pilot will help the researchers evaluate user experience with the app and determine its impact on outcomes, such as patient-caregiver communications, medication compliance and utilization of healthcare services.

Solmaz Amiri (PI) – Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine/IREACH
Alzheimer’s Association
“Social Determinants of Health and Neurodegeneration: The Strong Heart Study”
This study will examine the associations between social and environmental determinants of health and measures of cognition and brain volume in older adults who are American Indian and/or Alaska Native. The number of American Indian and/or Alaska Native people aged 65 years and older living with dementia is expected to quintuple by 2060. The conditions in the social and built environments where we are born and live, play, work, and age affect our overall health as well as our cognitive health. In this study, the researchers will use existing data from 400 elderly American Indian participants enrolled in the Strong Heart Study—a long-running study of aging in American Indian adults over three geographic regions—to look at the relationship between neighborhood-level socioeconomic status, exposure to green space and access to health care and changes in brain volume and cognitive test scores. The goal of the study is to determine which modifiable neighborhoods characteristics may influence cognitive health.

Amanda Boyd (PI); Denise Dillard; Juliana Garcia; Clemma Muller – Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine/IREACH
University of Southern California, Alzheimer’s Therapeutic Research Institute
“Recruitment of American Indian and Alaska Native People into Alzheimer’s Disease Clinical Trials”
American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) people have long been underrepresented in clinical trials for Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD), despite efforts to increase minority representation in these trials. It is important to address this disparity, given that AI/AN communities have an aging population and AI/ANs suffer from disproportionally high rates of ADRD risk factors. This study will use established community partnerships to help identify ways to increase AI/AN participation in ADRD clinical trials. The researchers will achieve this through listening sessions with AI/ANs aged 30 and over who will give advice on how to encourage ADRD clinical trial participation. Based on their input, the researchers will adapt existing ADRD and clinical studies recruitment materials to encourage AI/ANs to participate in a clinical trial. They will then conduct a randomized controlled trial to evaluate the effectiveness of the materials—a culturally tailored brochure and video—on enrollment in an AI/AN-focused research registry as compared to existing recruitment materials.

Amanda Boyd (PI) – Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine/IREACH
Washington State Health Care Authority/US Department of Health and Human Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
“Tribal Healthy Youth Survey Fellowship”
This award helps to establish a fellowship position that will support the creation of a plan to implement a Tribal Healthy Youth Survey Project. The Healthy Youth Survey is a biennial survey of 6^th to 12^th grader that measures youth health and wellbeing in Washington state. This includes assessing risk behaviors, such as substance use, mental health, behaviors related to food and physical activity and behaviors that can result in injuries, among others. The goal of this project is to give Tribal and urban American Indian communities improved access to the Washington State Healthy Youth Survey and the resulting survey data and increase the survey’s usefulness. This will help increase the number of Tribal schools participating in the Healthy Youth Survey, as well as the number of Tribes who are able to use the survey data in their behavioral health planning and strategic planning efforts.

Kathryn Cabbage (PI) – Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine/Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences
Florida State University/National Institutes of Health, National Institute on Deafness and Other Communications Disorders
“Academic Progress in Phonological Learning for Elementary School children with speech sound disorders (APPLES)”
This new four-year study will follow a total of 400 early elementary-aged children with speech sound disorders who are enrolled in school-based speech therapy services in Florida and Washington state for the academic year. The researchers will test each child for a variety of skills related to speech, language and reading at the beginning and end of the school year. In addition, they will collect therapy-related data from each child’s speech-language pathologist, such as the therapy approach, duration of sessions, number of children seen in the session, and the number of treatment trials the child attempted. The goal is to find the links between children’s speech production, reading, spelling and working memory skills and the type of speech therapy children receive.

Dawn Cooper (PI); Judith Bowen – Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine
Association of American Medical Colleges
“Building Bridges: Information sharing between post-match medical students and their future program directors”
Undergraduate medical education and graduate medical education have been shifting away from traditional course and grading structures toward competency-based education, which involves programmatic assessment that supports students’ learning and development over time. Yet the residency application process emphasizes traditional performance metrics such as honors grades and high USMLE scores, which disrupts this assessment-focused learning development orientation. This study will address the tensions within programmatic assessment at the point where medical students transition to being resident trainees. The goal is to identify what information about students’ learning trajectories residency program directors would find helpful to support students’ transition from medical school to residency. In addition, the study will explore what information students would be willing to share with residency directors to facilitate individualized learning plans that challenge them to maximize their expected competency development during residency training. This study will be conducted within the Western Region Group on Educational Affairs (WGEA), one of four regional groups of the Association of American Medical Colleges Group on Education Affairs. One planned outcome of the study will be to establish a WGEA Undergraduate Medical Education to Graduate Medical Education Transitions Research Collaborative.

Clemma Muller (PI) – Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine/IREACH
University of Hawaii/National Institutes of Health, National Heart Lung and Blood Institute
“PILI ‘ Āina Project”
This subaward provides funding for the WSU investigator to provide oversight of data collection and analysis activities related to the PILI ‘Āina Project, an NIH-funded clinical trial led by researchers at the University of Hawaii. The PILI ‘Āina Project is aimed at reducing disparities in cardiometabolic diseases among Native Hawaiian homesteaders. Native Hawaiians have the highest prevalence of these diseases of all populations in Hawai’i, and Native Hawaiian homesteaders have twice the rate of diet-related diseases than other Native Hawaiians. Diet is strongly implicated as a cause of these disparities, as westernization has shifted food systems away from Native Hawaiians’ historic diet rich in fish, fresh fruits and vegetables. To address these disparities, this project will test a multilevel intervention to promote healthy eating, weight loss and cardiovascular health for overweight/obese Native Hawaiian adults. The trial will be conducted on seven O’ahu homesteads and will include culturally tailored education based on the Diabetes Prevention Program’s Lifestyle Intervention. In addition, it will provide home garden materials and training to help participants connect with traditional Native Hawaiian culture, values, and lifestyle in their home environment and will feature traditional cooking and tasting events on the participating homesteads. The goal is to refine the intervention and test its effectiveness at improving self-management of cardiometabolic disease, such as type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure, and reducing risk factors for developing new diet-related illness.

Siavosh Naji-Talakar (PI) – College of Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Sciences
National Institutes of Health; National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health
“Effect of UGT2B17 deletion and curcumin inhibition on diclofenac Pharmacokinetics”
This award provides funds for a study to evaluate the potential for interactions between diclofenac—a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) used to treat pain, migraines, and arthritis—and curcumin, a herbal supplement that is frequently used to treat conditions related to inflammation and oxidative stress, such as metabolic syndrome, arthritis, anxiety, and high cholesterol. A previous WSU-led study found that there is a high degree of variability in the expression of UGT2B17, an enzyme that is a known player in diclofenac metabolism. As a result, diclofenac may not work well in some people and put others at high risk of adverse side effects, such as heart damage. This also increases the risk of interactions with other drugs or natural products. Given that both curcumin and diclofenac are used for arthritis and other inflammatory conditions, it seems highly likely that diclofenac-curcumin interactions exist that could impact how the drug moves through the body and could potentially lead to heart damage. Preliminary in-vitro studies conducted by the WSU investigator suggest that curcumin can suppress UGT2B17 activity, which could decrease an individual’s exposure to diclofenac. This study will investigate the effects of curcumin and UGT2B17 gene deletion on diclofenac metabolism, which could ultimately help improve the safety and efficacy of diclofenac and other drugs that metabolize via the UGT2B17 enzyme.

Joshua Neumiller (PI) – College of Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Sciences
University of Minnesota/American College of Clinical Pharmacy
“Medication Optimization in Patients with Chronic Kidney Disease with or without Type 2 Diabetes or Heart Failure to Improve Patient-Centered Health Outcomes”
This subaward provides funding for the WSU investigator to serve as co-principal investigator on a project led by researchers at the University of Minnesota College of Pharmacy. The funding was awarded by the American College of Clinical Pharmacy to help promote the development of novel and innovative patient-centered and team-based approaches that clinical pharmacists can use to achieve medication optimization for their patients. This study will test the effectiveness of a medication optimization approach for patients with chronic kidney disease who may or may not also have type 2 diabetes or heart failure.

Jose Pares-Avila (PI); Christina Chacon; Jennifer Hanlon Wilde – College of Nursing
University of Cincinnati/The Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation
“WSU College of Nursing Anti-Racism Initiative”
This subaward funds WSU’s participation in a three-year learning collaborative to develop an informed effort to address structural racism and promote anti-racist nursing educational environments in the WSU College of Nursing and other participating institutions. Led by the University of Cincinnati and funded by the Macy Foundation, the project builds on a national pilot study conducted in 2022 by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) that was aimed at better understanding the culture of inclusion and belonging in schools of nursing across the country. The WSU College of Nursing will be part of a cohort of 8 to 10 schools of nursing who will develop projects that will address structural racism and promote anti-racist environments in key areas, including curriculum and pedagogy; inclusion and belonging of students of color; inclusion and belonging of faculty and staff of color; academic culture/environment; and clinical environment.

Julie Postma (PI)– College of Nursing
Gonzaga University, Sigma Delta Chi
“Analysis of a bilingual survey for agricultural employers”
This grant provides funding to supplement an existing grant from the University of Washington’s Pacific Northwest Agricultural Safety and Health Center. That grant provided funding to support professional translation of a survey about wildfire smoke hazards in the agricultural workplace from English to Spanish. The additional funds provided by this new grant supports data analysis of the translated survey. WSU researchers are using the survey to explore and compare perceptions of air quality monitoring, health impacts, and hazard communication strategies among agricultural supervisors, many of whom speak Spanish. Survey outcomes will help the researchers identify best practices to enhance workplace safety and promote occupational health during wildfire smoke events.

Kenneth Roberts (PI); Jessica Gerdes – Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine
Washington State Employment Security Department
“Steven’s County Mentorship EMT Training: A Key that Opens Doors”
This grant provides funding for a year-long career and technical education course for 12th grade youth in three schools in Stevens County to train as emergency medical technicians (EMTs). Participating students will receive a stipend and get high school credit and could potentially earn an industry certificate once they turn 18 and pass the test. This new program will be the final installment to an existing 7th through 11th-grade mentorship program established in Stevens County by the WSU College of Medicine with funding from Career Connect Washington and other sources. Stevens County is largely rural, is medically underserved and has a high percentage of families of low socioeconomic status. This mentorship program provides an opportunity for students interested in healthcare careers to gain an understanding of healthcare fields through hands-on experiences and career-connected learning. The ultimate goal is to improve access to care in Stevens County by increasing the number of students who are ready to move forward in health sciences careers.

Kenneth Roberts (PI); Hans Van Dongen; Kenneth Isaacs; Shane Hentges; Marcos Frank – Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine/College of Veterinary Medicine
Washington Research Foundation
“Center of Excellence for Translational Neuroscience”
This Washington Research Foundation planning grant supports the creation of a center of excellence for the study of foundational, translational, and clinical neuroscience, tentatively called the Center of Excellence for Translational Neuroscience (CETN). It provides funds for the WSU investigators to spend time and resources to develop and submit a funding proposal for this new large-scale initiative. The goal for the new center of excellence will be to establish a framework for collaboration and interdisciplinary research that will advance scientists’ understanding of the nervous system and the mechanisms of onset and progression of neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative diseases. It will also shed light on how the function of the nervous system and its disease states are affected by various processes and factors, such as metabolism, sleep and circadian rhythms, pharmaceutical and psychoactive drugs, interactions between the gut microbiome and the host, and certain cellular processes within the brain. The center will bring together investigators from across the state, who will apply the newly gained knowledge of the nervous system in ways that lead to improvements in health and wellbeing and decrease the burden of disease.

Crystal Smith (PI); Salah-uddin Ahmed, Sterling McPherson; Nicole Rodin – Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine/College of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences
WSU Office of Research, Alcohol and Drug Abuse Research Program
“Safety and Behavioral Pharmacology of Cannabichromene as an Adjunct to Rheumatoid Arthritis Treatment; Effects on Inflammatory Markers and Rheumatoid Arthritis Disease Activity”
People with rheumatoid arthritis suffer from inflammation of joints and tissues, which results in chronic pain, issues with balance, deformed joints and organ damage. Medications to treat rheumatoid arthritis disrupt the production or signaling activity of cytokines, proteins that play a role in processes that cause inflammation. Unfortunately, one side effect of these medications is that they make rheumatoid arthritis patients more vulnerable to infection or weakened immune responses. Data from in-vitro experiments and animal studies suggest that cannabichromene—one of hundreds of cannabinoids found in the cannabis plant—could potentially help treat inflammation and pain in rheumatoid arthritis. However, no studies have been done that provide significant evidence for its effectiveness at treating rheumatoid arthritis in humans. This preliminary study will look at the safety and behavioral pharmacology of cannabichromene as a potential human rheumatoid arthritis treatment. The researchers will measure blood markers to determine the safety of cannabichromene and have participants self-report any side effects. They will then determine whether cannabichromene reduces blood inflammatory markers and overall rheumatoid arthritis disease activity at each of two different dosages administered to participants across 8 weeks. Data from this study will be used to apply for NIH funding for a multi-center clinical trial that would include a larger number of participants afflicted with a greater variety of inflammatory conditions.

Elizabeth Wood (PI); James Kennedy; Marissa Diaz; Weili Yuan – Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine
Association of University Centers on Disabilities (AUCD)/Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
“COVID-19’s Impact on People with Disabilities”
Granted by a partnership between the Association of University Centers on Disabilities (AUCD) and the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO), this new subaward will support an analysis of data from the 2022 National Survey on Health and Disability to determine the self-reported impacts of COVID-19 on the health and healthcare of people with disabilities. The study will create a detailed and comprehensive portrait of these impacts, from the direct impact of the disease to the indirect impact of the pandemic on health and access to health care. Findings from the study will help the researchers identify key areas where the pandemic and responses to the pandemic worsened existing issues for people with disabilities. By documenting these issues, this research will uncover the need for disability-inclusive plans to reduce illness and death and lower the health system burden during a pandemic. It will also help identify priority areas for future pandemic planning, which will be presented to stakeholders involved in disabilities and health matters during emergencies.

Boyang Wu (PI) – College of Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Sciences
National Institutes of Health; National Cancer Institute
“Elucidating the Role of Tryptophan Hydroxylase 1 in Neuroendocrine Prostate Cancer”
This new grant will advance the study of neuroendocrine prostate cancer, a rare, untreatable type of prostate cancer with an average life expectancy of less than one year after diagnosis. Neuroendocrine prostate cancer often develops in patients who have been treated with strong testosterone blockers for castration-resistant prostate cancer, a type of cancer that keeps growing despite very low testosterone levels. Preliminary studies conducted by the WSU investigator and his team suggest that an enzyme known as tryptophan hydroxylase 1 (TPH1) may be a key player in the development and growth of neuroendocrine prostate cancer. In this study, the researchers will determine whether TPH1 does in fact play an active role in driving neuroendocrine prostate cancer and attempt to unravel the underlying molecular mechanisms. Findings from this study may ultimately help scientists develop new therapies to extend the life expectancy of patients with neuroendocrine prostate cancer.

AWARDS FOR ONGOING WORK

(Renewal, continued, and supplemental funding for projects awarded previously)

Celestina Barbosa-Leiker (PI); Brian French – College of Nursing; College of Education
National Institutes of Health, National Institute on Aging
“Bilingualism as a protective factor of ADRD in American Indian adults: the Strong Heart Study”
American Indian populations are more likely to simultaneously suffer from cerebrovascular disease—such as stroke—and Alzheimer’s disease than non-Hispanic white U.S. populations and may also have a greater burden of cognitive decline and dementia. Bilingualism—which is common in American Indian communities—may reduce cognitive risk, but research on bilingualism in this population has been limited. Bilingualism is a highly individual experience, and the context of use can modify its effects on cognition. This award represents a funding increase for a study to culturally adapt a language use and history instrument to evaluate bilingualism in a large number of American Indians of multiple generations in conjunction with cognitive performance testing. Participants are recruited from the Strong Heart Study, a long-running study of aging in American Indian adults over three geographic regions. Findings from this project will have potential implications for future prevention and treatment strategies in this understudied population.

Naomi Bender (co-PI); Leila Harrison (co-PI); David Garcia; Alyonna Bangayan-Tielmann  – WSU Health Sciences Spokane; Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine
Oregon Health Sciences University/U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Indian Health Service
“INMED RISE: Reimagine IndianS into MedicinE”
This continuation provides funding for the Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine’s INMED RISE: Reimagine IndianS into MedicinE program through June 2024. INMED RISE offers access, mentoring, and exposure to American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) students interested in health professions. It funds two major program activities: (1) the RISE Summer Academy at WSU Health Sciences Spokane and the Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine, which is targeted to college-level AI/AN students interested in attending medical school; (2) the WSU expansion of the Wy’East post-baccalaureate program based at Oregon Health & Science University. The College of Medicine will select up to four students for four of the five funding years to participate in the Wy’East program, offering them conditional acceptance upon successful completion.

Ekaterina Burduli (PI) – College of Nursing
National Institutes of Health, National Institute on Drug Abuse
“Effective Caregiving for Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome: Development of an Instructional Mobile Technology Platform for High-Risk Pregnant Women”
This award continues an NIH Mentored Research Scientist Development Award for a study to address the lack of interventions that prepare pregnant opioid-addicted women for the challenges of caring for a newborn at risk of neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS). It will involve adapting an existing mobile NAS tool for clinician training and decision support to high-risk pregnant women. This will be done based on recommendations on the management of NAS gleaned from a series of interviews with neonatology experts, NAS care providers, and mothers with NAS-affected babies. The researchers will then test the usability, acceptability, and feasibility of the adapted mobile tool through surveys with 10 pregnant women receiving opioid agonist therapy (OAT) at Spokane Regional Health District’s Opioid Treatment Program and Evergreen Recovery Center. Finally, they will conduct a randomized controlled trial in which 30 high-risk pregnant women seen at these facilities will receive either the adapted mobile NAS caregiving tool or usual care. Outcomes measured and compared between the two groups include maternal drug relapse and OAT continuation, maternal-newborn bonding, length of newborn hospital stays and readmission rates, breastfeeding initiation and duration, and postpartum depression and anxiety at 4, 8, and 12 weeks postpartum. Findings will serve as pilot data for a larger trial to test the efficacy of the adapted NAS caregiving tool at reducing poor outcomes in NAS-affected newborns and their mothers.

Zhaokang Cheng (PI) – College of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences
National Institutes of Health, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
“Cell cycle proteins as key regulators of cardiac chemosensitivity”
Anthracycline-based chemotherapy, an effective treatment for many types of cancer, has long been associated with substantial toxicity to the heart. The anthracycline drug doxorubicin induces DNA damage and subsequent heart cell death, which eventually results in cardiomyopathy and heart failure. Previous research led by the principal investigator of this award has identified cyclin-dependent kinase 2 (CDK2) as a key player in heart toxicity resulting from treatment with anthracycline drugs and suggested that cardiac CDK2 activity determines how sensitive the heart is to chemotherapy. This award provides a funding increase for a four-year study to determine the role of two cell cycle proteins known to control CDK2 activity—CDK7 and RBL2—in heart cell death and cardiac chemosensitivity. This research could help lay the foundation for developing new strategies to protect the heart during cancer treatment.

Christopher Davis (PI); Jonathan Wisor – Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine/Sleep and Performance Research Center
National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke
“The Role of Medium Spiny Neurons in Sleep-Deprivation-Induced Cognitive Rigidity”
Previous WSU research in both humans and rodents has shown that cognitive flexibility—the ability to adjust decision-making strategy based on changing feedback during real-time tasks—is impaired after sleep deprivation. This results in cognitive rigidity, or the inability to change behavior or beliefs when they are ineffective at reaching a desired outcome. Despite these findings, the negative impacts of sleep loss on adaptive decision-making have only recently been recognized as a cause for concern, and there is a critical unmet need for studies that show the underlying mechanism of these impairments in the brain. This continuing study will use rodent models to advance the understanding of these mechanisms by identifying brain circuits and cellular processes involved in these impairments that could be used to mitigate sleep loss-induced cognitive dysfunction and target potential intervention strategies.

Marcos Frank (PI) – Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine
National Institutes of Health, National Institute on Neurological Disorders and Stroke
“Astroglial mechanisms in sleep homeostasis”
Common sleep problems such as excessive daytime sleepiness and insomnia may be caused in part by changes in sleep homeostasis, the process that increases sleep drive, sleep amounts, and sleep intensity based on prior time awake. This grant-funded project builds on a previous discovery by the researchers that this process involves a type of brain cells known as glial astrocytes, even though the cellular mechanisms sleep homeostasis had been thought to be neuronal before then. The goal of this continuing study is to test the researchers’ hypothesis that sleep homeostasis arises from interactions between astrocytes and neurons and that sleep loss drives intracellular and molecular changes in astrocytes. The researchers will also study the role of astroglial mechanisms in sleep in mouse models of neurodegenerative disease, such as Alzheimer’s disease. The work will provide new insight into the processes that drive abnormal sleep and could eventually lead to the development of new therapeutics that target glia to combat not only excessive daytime sleepiness and insomnia but also Alzheimer’s disease.

Jeff Haney (PI); Jaime Bowman – Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine
University of Washington
“Washington State University/Family Medicine Residency Network”
This subaward provides supplemental funding for the WSU College of Medicine’s role in the Family Medicine Residency Network, a collaboration with the University of Washington and Pacific Northwest University to increase the family physician workforce in shortage areas in the state. This funding pays for WSU to provide technical and organizational assistance to the Family Medicine Residency Network Rural Programs.

Katherine Hirchak (PI) – Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine/PRISM
Gila River Health Care/US Department of Health and Human Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
“Gila River Health Care Contingency Management”
This grant provides renewal funding for the WSU Promoting Research Initiatives in Mental Health and Substance Use (PRISM) Collaborative to provide contingency management training to healthcare clinicians at the Gila River Health Care Community in Arizona. Contingency management is a behavioral intervention that uses small prizes and other incentives to promote abstinence from substances. The Gila River Health Care Community—a tribal healthcare organization—is implementing a contingency management model for psychostimulant drugs that will be used by Gila River Health Care clinicians in multiple regions of Arizona.

Lois James (PI); Dawn DePriest; Deborah Eti; Stephen James; Connie Nguyen-Truong; Julie Postma – College of Nursing
National Institutes of Health, National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities
“Counter Bias Training Simulation (CBTsim) Healthcare: A Novel Approach for Reducing the Impact of Implicit Bias on Healthcare Delivery”
This grant continues funding for a three-year study aimed at reducing the impact of implicit bias on healthcare delivery. Unconscious biases based on race, ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status, LGBTQ+ status, disability, addiction, and other factors influence how healthcare providers treat patients, which impacts their health outcomes. James and others previously developed CBTsim, a simulation-based training program to reduce the impact of implicit bias on how people interact and make decisions that affect others. Versions of CBTsim have been used to help police officers and 911 dispatchers interact with diverse groups of community members in unbiased ways. For this study, the research team will develop CBTsim healthcare scenarios based on a review of literature on healthcare disparities and interviews with community members. They will then conduct a randomized controlled trial with 100 hospital nurses to test the effectiveness of the new CBTsim Healthcare module at reducing bias in how nurses treat their patients.

Patrik Johansson (PI); Ofer Amram – Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine/Community Health/Department of Nutrition and Exercise Physiology
Wabanaki Public Health/National Institutes of Health, National Institute on Aging
“Wabanaki Native American Research Centers for Health (NARCH)”
The number of aging American Indians is expected to increase exponentially by 2050, which raises concerns about the likelihood of proportionate increases in health conditions associated with aging, especially Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders. To address this issue as well as the limited availability of health data on American Indians, WSU will establish the Wabanaki Native American Research Center for Health, a partnership between Wabanaki Public Health and the Institute for Research and Education to Advance Community Health (IREACH) in the WSU College of Medicine. This award provides continuing funding for that effort. Wabanaki Public Health is a tribal public health district serving the four federally recognized tribes of Maine, which make up five tribal communities. The first tribal Native American Research Center for Health in the northeastern U.S., Wabanaki Native American Research Center for Health will fill important gaps in our knowledge of Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders and mild cognitive impairment among older, understudied American Indians and help reduce the health disparities experienced by Wabanaki tribal citizens.

Andrea Lazarus (PI) – College of Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Sciences
University of Washington/National Institutes of Health, National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences
“Institute of Translational Health Sciences”
This grant provides continued funding for WSU to work with the University of Washington to develop an educational program that can be rolled out at institutions that participate in the WWAMI medical education program. The program will provide a track in translational health sciences to incorporate into existing programs, such as the PharmD Honors program at WSU.

Weimin Li (PI) – Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine/College of Nursing
United Health Group/Everett Clinic PLLC
“Extracellular Matrix Protein Profiling for Improved Risk Stratification of Ductal Carcinoma in Situ”
This award represents a funding increase for a study to assess whether differences in protein expression in the extracellular matrix of a tumor can be used to stratify ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) into high-risk and low-risk groups. DCIS is the earliest stage of ductal carcinoma, representing about 25 percent of breast cancer cases diagnosed in the United States. Because DCIS is non-invasive, the prognosis is usually excellent, with a breast cancer-specific mortality rate of only 3.3% 20 years after diagnosis. Even without treatment, only an estimated 20 to 50 percent of DCIS will progress to invasive ductal carcinoma. However, because the clinical behavior of DCIS can vary quite a bit and is difficult to predict, most patients with DCIS are treated similar to patients with more aggressive invasive ductal carcinoma: with mastectomy alone or lumpectomy followed by radiation and an oral anti-estrogen. Successful stratification of DCIS into low-risk and high-risk disease would ensure that patients with low-risk disease can receive less rigorous treatment, or perhaps no treatment at all.

Thomas May (PI) – Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine
University of Alabama at Birmingham/National Institutes of Health; National Human Genome Research Institute
“Integrating Genomic Risk Assessment for Disease Management in a Diverse Population”
This subaward provides continued funds for the investigator, Thomas May, to contribute to a research project that aims to predict the occurrence and progression of 15 common chronic diseases through polygenic risk scores. As part of this study, May will conduct a pilot ethical legal social implications study to explore patient perspectives on the use of family health history and genetic testing. He will also lead engagement efforts to identify factors that promote the trust necessary for optimizing enrollment of minority participants in the study. Findings from the ethical legal social implications study will inform the development of consent and educational materials for the study, as well as a communication strategy to enhance recruitment and retention of participants. This research project is the vital first step to leverage the power of genomics to prevent disease by implementing genomic risk assessments into clinical care to identify, and if appropriate, pretreat at-risk patients.

Michael McDonell (PI) – Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine/PRISM
WA State Health Care Authority/US Department of Health and Human Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
“Health Care Authority Contingency Management Training”
This grant provides renewal funding and supplemental funding for additional staffing for the WSU Promoting Research Initiatives in Mental Health and Substance Use (PRISM) Collaborative’s efforts to support the Washington Healthcare Authority in implementing contingency management training. Contingency management is a behavioral intervention that uses small prizes and other incentives to promote abstinence from addictive substances. The goal of this project is to provide technical assistance to clinical sites that are working to develop and implement a contingency management model for psychostimulant drugs.

Sterling McPherson (PI); John Roll; Michael McDonell; Ekaterina Burduli; Naomi Chaytor; Matthew Layton – Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine
National Institutes of Health, National Cancer Institute
“An Addictions Neuroclinical Assessment Based Treatment for Smokers with an Alcohol Use Disorder”
This continuing project involves a randomized controlled trial that will evaluate whether an incentive-based behavioral treatment that reinforces alcohol abstinence combined with the smoking cessation medication varenicline could successfully reduce both alcohol use and cigarette smoking among heavy-drinking smokers. Tobacco and alcohol combined kill more than half a million people each year in the U.S., making the addiction to these two substances combined the leading cause of preventable death.

Sterling McPherson (PI) – Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs; VA Portland Health Care System
“Collaborative pain care for rural Veterans with substance use disorders”
Veterans with alcohol and other drug use disorders experience high rates of chronic pain. Pain treatment for these patients can be complicated by active substance use disorders, and these complications are worse for rural Veterans who lack access to specialty pain care within the Veterans Affairs system and the community. This award provides supplemental funding for WSU researchers to evaluate the perceived impact of a newly developed pain program delivered exclusively via telehealth for patients engaged in treatment for substance use disorders at two VA sites: the VA Portland Health Care System in Portland, Ore., and the Mann-Grandstaff VA Medical Center in Spokane, Wash. Led by a nurse care manager, the program includes an initial comprehensive pain assessment and treatment recommendations, up to six additional follow-up appointments, and a weekly pain education class. The nurse care manager will also help connect patients to available pain treatment resources both within VA and the community. This project will yield a pain treatment program and implementation tool kit that can be used to deliver the program to rural veterans receiving VHA care across the U.S.

Oladunni Oluwoye (PI); Liat Kriegel; Ekaterina Burduli – Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine/College of Nursing
National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Mental Health
“A Family Peer Navigator Model to Increase Access and Initial Engagement in Coordinated Specialty Care Programs Among Black Families”
Family members have a key role in facilitating the initiation of mental health services. Yet, Black/African American families often encounter barriers and experience delays accessing coordinated specialty care programs. These delays can be attributed to individual (e.g., knowledge), interpersonal (e.g., connectedness), community (e.g., access), and societal (e.g., discrimination) factors. In other health-related areas, peer navigator models improve access to much-needed services and promote more positive experiences among individuals and their families. However, there have been no family peer navigator models developed to address the complexities that impact Black/African American families to improve access to coordinated specialty care programs. Preliminary research suggests approximately 70 percent of Black/African American family members report no contact with clinicians prior to initial diagnosis and receiving services for early psychosis. Building upon formative research, this continuing R34 study will use mixed methods across three phases to develop, refine, and pilot-test a multi-component Family Peer Navigator model designed to increase access and engagement in coordinated specialty care programs Black/African American families.

Oladunni Oluwoye (PI); Solmaz Amiri; Michael McDonell – Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine/PRISM
National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Mental Health
“Geographic Disparities in the Availability and Accessibility of Coordinated Specialty Care Programs for Early Psychosis”
Coordinated specialty care is the standard of care for early psychosis in the U.S., and approximately 350 such programs have been implemented in 49 states. Research has highlighted the importance of mental health services being available in proximity to an individual’s community. However, little is known about the spatial distribution and accessibility of these programs in the U.S. and whether their placement and distribution contribute to inequities in care. In this continuing study, Oluwoye and her colleagues will use advanced spatial analytics to better understand geographic inequities and accessibility of coordinated specialty care programs, which can be used to inform policy and guide the future implementation of coordinated specialty care programs in high-need areas with limited access.

Julie Postma (PI)– College of Nursing
Castner Incorporated/National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
“Environmental Health Research Institute for Nurse and Clinician Scientists”
This award continues funding for a five-year grant for Dr. Julie Postma to serve as faculty in the NIH-funded Environmental Health Research Institute for Nurse and Clinician Scientists. The institute educates nurse and clinician scientists on foundational concepts in environmental health to prepare them for conducting environmental health-related research. The award provides funds for Postma to prepare and record self-paced lectures for the virtual classroom; teach and present at the annual workshop in June; and provide assistance with recruiting workshop participants and event coordination for the 2026 annual workshop, which will be hosted at WSU Spokane.

Bhagwat Prasad (PI) – College of Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Sciences
SRI International/National institutes of Health, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
“Experimental Identification of Metabolites and the Mechanism of Metabolic Elimination of 11ß-Methyl-19-nortestosterone and Two Prodrugs”
This award provides renewal funding for work done by WSU to determine the metabolic stability, metabolite profile, and enzymes responsible for metabolism of an investigational male contraceptive agent, 11ß-Methyl-19-nortestosterone (11ß-MNT), and its two prodrugs (pharmacologically inactive medications or compounds that are metabolized into a pharmacologically active drug once taken). The researchers will conduct their testing using advanced imaging techniques on human in vitro systems—such as liver cells and intestinal microsomes.

John Roll (PI); Sterling McPherson; Celestina Barbosa-Leiker – Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine; College of Nursing
National Institutes of Health, National Institute on Drug Abuse
“Clinical Trials Network: Pacific Northwest Node”
This award continues funding for WSU’s role in supporting the Pacific Northwest Node of the National Institute on Drug Abuse Clinical Trials Network (CTN). The Pacific Northwest Node is a multi-institution, multiple principal investigator effort to continue CTN’s mission to improve the quality of drug abuse treatment throughout the country through science.

Jingru Sun (PI) – Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine
National Institutes of Health, National Institute of General Medical Sciences
“NIGMS R35 Equipment Supplement Proposal”
This award provides supplemental funding for the purchase of research instrumentation for a five-year study of the neural regulation of innate immunity—the immune system we are born with. The research uses a tiny soil-dwelling worm known as Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) as a model organism. This work will contribute to the theory that there could be a predetermined setpoint for internal immunity and that the nervous system regulates immune responses to internal or external environmental changes to bring immunity back to the setpoint and restore immune balance. Sun and her team previously identified several neuronal proteins that play a role in how the nervous system and immune system interact to fight infection and achieve specificity of the innate immune system. (Specificity, the ability to respond differently to specific pathogens, was previously ascribed only to the adaptive immune system, which develops over time through disease exposure). With this new round of funding, the researchers will delve further into the underlying mechanisms that drive these processes. Findings from these studies could benefit the development of new treatments for infectious diseases and innate immune disorders.

Sergey Tolmachev (PI) – College of Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Sciences
US Department of Energy, Office of Environment, Health, Safety & Security
“Manage and Operate the United States Transuranium and Uranium Registries”
This award provides incremental funding for a five-year renewal award to manage and operate the United States Transuranium and Uranium Registries (USTUR). Designed as a program to improve radiation protection of nuclear workers, the USTUR studies the biokinetics and internal dosimetry of actinides (uranium, plutonium, and americium) in occupationally exposed individuals who volunteer their bodies, or portions of them, for scientific use after their death. These donations provide an opportunity to set up bases for safety standards in radiological protection and to support radiation epidemiological studies. Published results of the Registries’ research contribute to the development of recommendations and standards issued by the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) and National Council on Radiation Protection & Measurements (NCRP).

Hans Van Dongen (PI); Brieann Satterfield – Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine/Sleep & Performance Research Center
University of Michigan/US Department of Defense, US Army
“Understanding and Predicting Cognitive Fatigue across Multiple Timescales, Distinct Aspects of Cognition, and Different Individuals with Multiscale Whole Cortex Models”
This subaward funds the WSU Sleep and Performance Research Center’s continuing role in a five-year project funded as part of a US Department of Defense Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) grant. The overall goal of the project is to understand and predict cognitive fatigue in individuals, focusing on built-up fatigue in the brain such as during sleep deprivation and when individuals are working at times that do not align with their natural 24-hour sleep/wake rhythms. As part of this work, the researchers will build personalized mathematical models of sleep, circadian rhythms, physical activity and mood and optimize the efficacy of objective mobile sensors to detect the onset of cognitive fatigue. They will test the models’ predictive ability through controlled laboratory studies measuring the impact of sleep deprivation on cognitive performance, which will be conducted at the WSU Human Sleep and Cognition Laboratory in Spokane.

Boyang Wu (PI); Lucia Peixoto; Philip Lazarus – College of Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Sciences/Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine
National Institutes of Health, National Cancer Institute
“MAOA and AR Reciprocal Crosstalk in Prostate Cancer”
Prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in American men. The primary driver of prostate cancer growth is androgen receptor, which regulates male hormones such as testosterone. The main treatment for prostate cancer currently consists of androgen deprivation therapy, which reduces testosterone to very low levels. In more than 90 percent of cases, prostate cancer initially responds to this therapy but will eventually relapse and progress into fatal castrate-resistant prostate cancer, which grows despite low testosterone levels. This award provides a funding increase for a study that will look at a new molecular target for treating advanced prostate cancer: monoamine oxidase A (MAOA). The researchers have identified a reciprocal relationship between MAOA and androgen receptor in prostate cancer cells. Based on their findings, they will determine the molecular mechanism by which MAOA and androgen receptor interact in prostate cancer cells; characterize the role of MAOA in the development and progression of castrate-resistant prostate cancer; and determine the efficacy of MAOA inhibitor drugs for treating castrate-resistant prostate cancer and reversing cancer cell resistance to the latest generation of antiandrogen drugs. The study may provide a basis for developing new combination therapeutic strategies for advanced prostate cancer.

Jiyue Zhu (PI); Chris Davis – College of Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Sciences; Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine
National Institutes of Health, National Institutes of Health, National Institute on Aging
“A mouse model with humanized telomere homeostasis”
This continuation award funds year three of a five-year project to develop a new mouse model with human-like telomere homeostasis. Telomeres are the protective caps of chromosomal ends and function as an aging clock. In adult humans, telomeres get shorter every time cells multiply. This ultimately causes cells to lose their ability to proliferate, a process known as replicative aging. Some cell types—such as reproductive cells and cancer cells—are not subject to replicative aging because a gene encoding the telomerase enzyme, which helps to reset telomere length, is turned on in these cells. Mice do not experience replicative aging. They have excessively long telomeres, and telomerase lengthens telomeres in most cells in mice. These differences make animal models unsuitable for addressing many fundamental questions in human aging and cancer biology. In this project, the researchers will genetically engineer a mouse strain with limited telomerase gene activity and human-like short telomeres. They will use the mice to study how loss of telomere length contributes to human aging. Specifically, the researchers will study how short telomeres affect lifespan and explore ways to extend health span, the part of a person’s life with good health.