TTSA Teams and Projects | Office of Research

Summary of TTSA projects funded since January 2014

TTSA Phase II Award Teams – December 2023

Brandi Reeves, MD(Assistant Professor, Medicine/Hematology) & Rafal Pawlinski, PhD (Professor, Medicine/Hematology, School of Medicine)
Hypoxia Inducible Factors alpha in Myeloproliferative Neoplasm-Associated Thrombosis

TTSA Phase I Award Teams – December 2023

Leon Coleman, MD, PhD(Assistant Professor, Pharmacology) Zibo Li, PhD(Professor, Radiology) & Steven Rowe, MD, PhD (Professor, Radiology)
A New Translational Team for Early Diagnosis and Prevention of Alzheimer’s Disease

William Kim, MD, PhD(Professor, Medicine, Genetics, Pharmacology), Brian Kuhlman, PhD(Professor, Biochemistry and Biophysics) & Shawn Yu, MD(Fellow, Medicine)
Multispecific T-cell engagers targeting intracellular cancer-testis antigens in urothelial carcinoma

TTSA Phase I Award Teams – 2021-22

Johanna Smeekens, PhD(Assistant Professor, Pediatrics) & Scott Commins, MD, PhD (Associate Professor, Medicine, School of Medicine)
Early-life Th2-skewing as a risk factor for allergic sensitizations

Silvia Kreda, PhD(Associate Professor, Medicine & Biochemistry), Margaret Leigh, MD(Professor, Pediatrics) & Lawrence Ostrowski, PhD (Professor, Pediatrics)
Oligonucleotide-Based Therapy and Precision Medicine Platform for Primary Ciliary Dyskinesia

TTSA Phase I Award Teams – April 2019

Antonio Amelio (Oral and Craniofacial Health Sciences), Trevor Hackman (Otolaryngology), Joel Parker (Genetics), Siddharth Sheth (Medicine), Renee Betancourt (Pathology and Laboratory Medicine), Wendell Yarbrough (Otolaryngology)
Molecular Subtyping of Salivary Mucoepidermoid Carcinoma (MEC) for Risk Stratification and Guiding Therapeutic Decisions

Paul Armistead (Medicine), Nilu Goonetilleke (Microbiology and Immunology)
Targeting HLA-E Restricted Epitopes for Immunotherapy Against Cancer

Yevgeny Brudno (Biomedical Engineering), Gianpietro Dotti (Microbiology and Immunology), Natalie Grover (Medicine)
In Situ Recruitment, Reprogramming and Release of CAR-T Cells

David Lalush (Biomedical Engineering), Tracy Rose (Medicine), William Kim (Medicine), Naim Rashid (Biostatistics), Amir Khandani (Radiology), Matthew Milowsky (Medicine), Hung-Jui Tan (Urology) Sara Wobker (Pathology and Laboratory Medicine)
Quantitative PET-MRI Imaging Correlated with Transcriptome Analysis for Noninvasive Characterization of Renal Cell Carcinomas

TTSA Phase I Award Teams – April 2018

Melinda Beck (Nutrition), Raza Shaikh (Nutrition), Timothy Farrell (Surgery)
Mechanisms by which gastric-bypass surgery improves lymphocyte immunometabolism

Yuliya Pylayeva-Gupta (Genetics), Paul Dayton (BME), Autumn McRee (Medicine)
Revitalization of anti-tumor immune responses using image-guided sonoporation in pancreatic cancer

Beh Calhoun (Medicine), Melissa Troester (Epidemiology), Sarah Nyante (Radiology)
Integration of Molecular, Epidemiologic, and Histopathologic Markers for Risk Stratification of Benign Breast Disease

TTSA Phase I Award Teams – April 2017

Timothy Gershon (Neurology), Kirk Wilhelmsen (Genetics)
Analyzing clonal diversity to improve risk stratification and therapy for medulloblastoma
(Awarded Phase II in August 2018)

Xian Chen (Biochemistry & Biophysics), Kristalyn Gallagher (Surgery)
Proteogenomic discovery of patient-specific, phenotypic markers for early diagnosis of invasive lobular carcinoma

TTSA Phase I Award Teams – April 2016

Fernando Pardo Manuel de Villena (Genetics), Wesley Burks (Pediatrics)
Development and characterization of an improved translational model of peanut allergy
(Awarded Phase II in April 2017)

James Garbutt (Psychiatry), Todd Thiele (Psychology & Neuroscience), Mark Tommerdahl (BME), Robyn Jordan (Psychiatry)
Assessing Changes in the Brain Melanocortin System and Sensory Processing in Response to Alcohol to Advance our Understanding of the Pathophysiology and Psychopharmacology of Binge Drinking

Rich Davis (Ophthalmology), Matt Hirsch (Ophthalmology), Brian Gilger (NCSU Veterinary School)
Prevention of Cornea Graft Rejection using AAV Gene Therapy
(Awarded Phase II in April 2017)

TTSA Phase I Award Teams- April 2015

Toni Darville, MD (Pediatrics), Scott Randell, PhD (Cell Biology and Physiology), Uma Nagarajan PhD (Pediatrics), Catherine O’Connell PhD (Pediatrics), Pris Wyrick PhD (Pediatrics), Mehmet Kesimer PhD (Biochemistry and Biophysics), Adrienne Cox PhD (Pharmacology), Kim Boggess, MD (Ob Gyn) and Matthew Zerden, MD (Ob Gyn).
Primary human fallopian tube cell models for research on Chlamydia trachomatis –induced disease.
(Awarded Phase II in December 2016)

Richard F. Loeser, Jr., MD (Medicine), Pauline Kay Lund, PhD (Cell Biology and Physiology), M. Andrea Azcarate-Peril, PhD (Cell Biology and Physiology), Joann Jordan, MD, MPH (Medicine/Rheumatology), Ryan Balfour Sartor, MD (Medicine), Todd A. Schwartz, DrPH (Biostatistics), Jenny P. Ting, PhD (Genetics).
The Role of the Microbiome in Osteoarthritis

Francisco A. Sylvester, MD (Pediatrics), Ian Carroll PhD (Medicine), Kinh N. Truong, PhD (Biostatistics).
Effects of a dysbiotic intestinal microbiome present in Crohn disease on skeletal health and linear growth

TTSA Phase I Award Teams- September 2014

Evan Dellon, MD, MPH (Medicine), Michael Kulis, PhD (Pediatrics ), Brian Vickery, MD (Pediatrics)
A novel T-cell directed approach to dietary therapy in patients with eosinophilic esophagitis
(Awarded Phase II in April 2015)

James Faber, PhD (Cell and Molecular Physiology), David Huang, MD (Neurology), William Powers, MD (Neurology), Yueh Lee, MD, PhD (Radiology), Kirk Wilhelmsen, MD (Genetics)
GENEtic Determinants of Collateral Status in StFroke – The GENEDCSS Study

David Gerber, MD (Surgery), Jude Samulski, PhD (Pharmacology), Caibin Cui, PhD (Medicine), Chengwen Li, PhD (Pediatrics)
Patient-derived chimeric mouse models for studying liver disease

Penny Gordon-Larsen, PhD (Nutrition), Barry Popkin, PhD (Nutrition), Annie Green-Howard, PhD (Biostatistics), Amanda Thompson, PhD (Anthropology)
Gut microbiome markers of cardiometabolic disease in transition to a Western diet
(Awarded Phase II in April 2015)

Brian Jensen, MD (Medicine), Gary Johnson, PhD (Pharmacology), Cary Anders, MD (Medicine), Sean Gomez, PhD (BME/Pharmacology), Joel Parker, PhD (Genetics)
Integrated profiling of the kinome and transcriptome to predict cardiotoxicity of kinase inhibitors
(Awarded Phase II in August 2018)

Kristy Richards, MD (Medicine), Dirk Dittmer, PhD (Microbiology and Immunology), David Suter, VMD, PhD, MS (NCSU)
Disrupting EBV lymphomagenesis as a novel strategy for the treatment of human and canine lymphoma

TTSA Phase I Award Teams- January 2014

James Bear, PhD (Cell Biology and Physiology), David Rubenstein, MD, PhD (Dermatology), Donna A. Culton, MD, PhD (Dermatology)
Accelerating cutaneous wound healing through inhibition of O-GlcNAc transferase

Mohanish Deshmukh, PhD (Cell Biology and Physiology), Charles Cairns, MD (Emergency Medicine), Praveen Sethupathy, PhD (Genetics), Ned Sharpless, MD (Medicine and Genetics)
miR-29 as a Novel Biomarker and Regulator of Aging

Flavio Frohlich PhD (Psychiatry) and Haewon Shin MD (Neurology)
Discovering the Mechanisms of Targeted Enhancement of Brain Activity and Cognition by BrainStimulation using Intracranial Electrophysiology in Epilepsy Patients

Yueh Z. Lee, MD, PhD (Radiology), Otto Zhou, PhD (Physics & Astronomy), Jianping Lu, PhD (Physics & Astronomy), Marianne Muhlebach, MD (Pediatric Pulmonology), Scott Donaldson, MD (Pulmonary Medicine), Jennifer Goralski, MD (Pulmonary Medicine), Richard Boucher, MD (Pulmonary Medicine), Katherine Birchard MD (Radiology), Casey Sams, MD (Radiology), Lynn Fordham(Radiology)
Stationary Chest Tomosynthesis for Imaging Young Cystic Fibrosis Patients
(Awarded Phase II in October 2014)

P. Kay Lund, PhD (Cell Biology and Physiology), Ric Boucher, MD (Pulmonary Medicine), Scott Randell, PhD (Cell Biology and Physiology), Scott Magness, PhD (Cell Biology and Physiology), Evan Dellon, MD, MPH (Gastroenterology), Shengli Ding, PhD (Cell Biology and Physiology), Raluca Dumitru, PhD (Genetics), Martina Gentzsch, PhD (Cell Biology and Physiology)
Intestinal epithelial cell culture systems to advance personalized research and therapy in Cystic Fibrosis (CF) and other gastrointestinal (GI) diseases
(Awarded Phase II in October 2014)

Shehzad Sheikh, MD (Gastroenterology) and Terry Furey, PhD (Genetics)
Identifying Genetic- and Microbial-based Molecular Markers of Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Maureen Su, MD (Microbiology and Immunology),Mike Cohen, MD (Infectious Disease), George Fedoriw, MD (Pathology), Terry Magnuson, PhD (Genetics), Jason Whitmire, PhD (Genetics)
Histone modifications in the clearance of chronic viral infections
(Awarded Phase II in October 2014)