RSS 1.0UMass Center for Clinical and Translational Science Research Symposium
ABOUT THIS COLLECTION
The UMass Center for Clinical and Translational Science Research Symposium (formerly Research Retreat) highlights the ongoing work across the five University of Massachusetts campuses, UMass Memorial Health Care, Baystate Health and a broad range of collaborators to fulfill the mission of the UMass Center for Clinical and Translational Science (UMCCTS). This website features a collection of selected recordings, posters, presentations, and abstracts contributed by presenters at the research retreat. The UMCCTS is part of the Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) program, funded by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (Grant # UL1-TR001453) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
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Recently Published
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Videorecording: UMCCTS Research Symposium 2022Click on the "Link to Full Text" button to view a video recording of the UMass Center for Clinical and Translational Science Research Symposium held virtually on Friday, June 10, 2022. This recording is restricted to current UMass Chan Medical School users only.
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Agenda: UMCCTS Research Symposium 2022Agenda for the UMass Center for Clinical and Translational Science Research Symposium held virtually on Friday, June 10, 2022.
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Pulse OximetryAs part of the mini-symposium entitled "Bench to Bedside: Engineering Technology Translation," Dr. Mendelson describes pulse oximetry technology and how that technology idea successfully developed into a real world medical product.
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Poster Session Program: 2017 UMass Center for Clinical and Translational Science Research RetreatPoster Session Program for the 7th annual UMass Center for Clinical and Translational Science Research Retreat, held Tuesday, May 16, 2017 at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA. View poster abstracts
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Agenda: 2017 UMass Center for Clinical and Translational Science Research RetreatAgenda for the 7th annual UMass Center for Clinical and Translational Science Research Retreat, held Tuesday, May 16, 2017 at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA.
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Patient-Perceived Breakdowns in Care: Informing Clinician ResponsesThe presentation will introduce the audience to the topic of patient-perceived breakdowns in care, with a focus on breakdowns in the critical care setting. It will highlight how patient-perceived breakdowns in care can impede the delivery of patient-centered care, including shared decision-making. It will conclude by exploring the central role of frontline clinicians in responding to patient reports of breakdowns in care, including potential facilitators and barriers to addressing patient concerns about breakdowns in care. This presentation is part of the mini-symposium entitled "Building Bridges to "Cross the Quality Chasm": The Challenges of Engaging Clinicians in Patient-Centered Care."
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Shared Decision Making in Neurocritical Care: Barriers and FacilitatorsThe presentation will introduce the audience to shared decision-making in general, as well as specifically in critical care, including the barriers and facilitators of shared-decision making in stakeholders. The presentation will also highlight the ongoing research activities at UMMS to develop and implement the first neuro-critical care based decision support tool for surrogate decision makers. This presentation is part of the mini-symposium entitled "Building Bridges to "Cross the Quality Chasm": The Challenges of Engaging Clinicians in Patient-Centered Care."
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Substance Use Disorder in Pregnancy: Improving Care and Reducing Risk in Franklin County with EMPOWERAs part of the mini-symposium entitled "Pregnant and Parenting Mothers with History of Opiate Addiction," this presentation describes Project EMPOWER, an innovative hospital-based intervention to improve management of neonatal abstinence syndrome through the use of rooming-in and access to a designated psychotherapist.
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Caring for Substance Exposed NewbornsAs part of the mini-symposium entitled "Pregnant and Parenting Mothers with History of Opiate Addiction," this presentation describes innovations in care for substance exposed newborns while highlighting the gaps in services antepartum and post hospital discharge.
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UMass & The Life Sciences: A Collaborative Gene Fully ExpressedMichael F. Collins, MD, is Senior Vice President for the Health Sciences for the University of Massachusetts and Chancellor, UMass Medical School. In his presentation he describes UMass’s system-wide strategic planning, coordination, and collaboration to position the UMass System for sustained and impactful external engagement in the life sciences.
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Association between Psychosocial Factors, Quality of Life and Atrial FibrillationBackground: Atrial fibrillation (AF) is associated with cognitive and psychosocial comorbidities, and poorer quality of life (QOL). In this study, we aimed to study the association between cognition, psychosocial status and QOL at baseline and AF recurrence. Methods: We enrolled 222 symptomatic AF patients (64±10.0 years, 36% women) treated with a rhythm-control strategy. We performed cognitive, psychosocial, and QOL assessments using Montreal cognitive assessment (MOCA, cognitive impairment Results: A total of 123 (55%) participants experienced an AF recurrence over the 6-month follow-up period. Participants with an AF recurrence had higher rates of depression (31% vs.14%, p=0.022) and lower QOL (62±24 vs. 72±21, p=0.003) at baseline than did participants free from recurrence. In multivariable logistic regression models, lower baseline QOL, but not depression, anxiety, or cognition, was associated with a significantly higher odds of AF recurrence event (Odds Ratio: 0.98, CI 0.97-0.99). Conclusion: Lower AF-related QOL is associated with higher odds of AF recurrence over 6 months among symptomatic AF patients treated with rhythm control. Patient-reported variables have not previously been considered as risk factors for disease progression or prognosis. Our data suggests QOL may serve as a useful tool to aid clinicians in the management of AF patients.
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Companion Diagnostics for Breast Cancer ChemotherapeuticsChemotherapy plays a major role in breast cancer treatment. However, not every chemotherapeutics is appropriate for each cancer due to the person’s individual cancer characteristics and whether the patient has developed chemoresistance to a particular drug. In this research, the InVitro-Q is used to detect subtle differences in tumor cell proliferation post-treatment with four-breast cancer chemotherapeutics used: paclitaxel, docetaxel, nocodazole, and cytochalasin B. Our multi-well cell-based sensor that can monitor real-time biological changes in living cells, such as mass redistribution, and viscoelasticity. This system provides unique kinetic information regarding the phenotypic change in the cells post treatment. Each drug induces apoptosis by targeting a different mechanism of action. Each drug was assayed for 48h with MCF-7 or SK-Br-3 breast cancer cells, and data collected. Post analysis we created quantitative projection regarding the efficacy of each drug on the specific cancer type.
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Improving Tuberculosis Diagnostics using Deep Learning and Mobile Health Technologies among Resource-poor Communities in PeruAs part of the mini-symposium entitled “Research on Digital Health for Designing Scalable Pervasive Healthcare Monitoring, Rehabilitation, and Home-based Healthcare Systems,” Dr. Alcantara discusses a project to improve the tuberculosis diagnosis in resource poor communities in Peru.
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Deep Learning and Digital HealthAs part of the mini-symposium entitled “Research on Digital Health for Designing Scalable Pervasive Healthcare Monitoring, Rehabilitation, and Home-based Healthcare Systems,” Dr. Cao discusses his research projects focusing on digital health.
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UMMS Biomedical Data Assets & D3HealthAs part of the mini-symposium entitled “Research on Digital Health for Designing Scalable Pervasive Healthcare Monitoring, Rehabilitation, and Home-based Healthcare Systems,” Dr. Mathew discusses the research and clinical data ecosystem at UMass Medical School and the D3Health system integrating biomedical big data, analytics, and decision support.
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Do We Want to Know about patients’ perceptions of care? Insights from implementation scienceThe presentation will introduce the “We Want to Know” program, the goal of which is to make it easy for patients and family members who have concerns about care to express their concern and get a response. It will also describe how the program is being adopted and implemented across 10 hospitals in the Washington DC/Baltimore area, and will draw on key implementation science concepts to highlight the challenges in translating the program into practice. This presentation is part of the mini-symposium entitled "Building Bridges to "Cross the Quality Chasm": The Challenges of Engaging Clinicians in Patient-Centered Care."
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Shared Decision-Making in the Emergency Department: Patient and Physician PerspectivesThis presentation will explore the perspectives of both ED physicians and ED patients regarding barriers to shared decision-making in the setting of emergency care. It will describe challenges, highlight modifiable barriers, and introduce ongoing research at UMMS Baystate. This presentation is part of the mini-symposium entitled "Building Bridges to "Cross the Quality Chasm": The Challenges of Engaging Clinicians in Patient-Centered Care."
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Collaborating to Cure the Most Common Parasites on the PlanetSoil-transmitted helminths (STHs), most notably, hookworms, whipworms, and Ascaris, are nematodes that infect more than 1.5 billion of the poorest people and are leading causes of morbidity worldwide. Only one class of de-worming drugs (anthelmintic) is commonly used in mass drug administrations. New anthelmintics are urgently needed to overcome emerging resistance and to produce higher cure rates. Crystal (Cry) proteins, in particular Cry5B, made by Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) are promising new candidates. Cry5B has excellent anthelmintic properties against many free-living and parasitic nematodes, including in vivo efficacy against multiple STH infections in rodents (Heligomasmidoes polygyrus and Ancylostoma ceylanicum) and in pigs (Ascaris suum). An enormous challenge for STHs, very different from most diseases worked on in the developing world, is the requirement that therapies be very cheap (the people infected are very poor and current drugs costs pennies a dose), massively scalable (over 4 billion people are at risk from infection), and have a long shelf life in harsh environments, that have high temperature and humidity and no cold chain. Working together, we have made excellent progress in our development efforts to produce a deployable version of Cry5B that is cheap, safe, scalable, and stable. These efforts are focused on microbiology, bacterial engineering, expression, and formulation. In the process of this work, we have discovered a novel bacterial expression system that meets these key requirements. In addition, we will provide latest information about the broad spectrum of activity of Cry5B against key parasites that make this therapeutic a very attractive alternative from current treatments.
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The Utilization of Video Capsule Endoscopy in Patients with Peutz-Jeghers SyndromeAIM: Our aim is to demonstrate the utilization of VCE in the patients with Peutz–Jeghers syndrome (PJS) and evaluate the distribution of the polyps in each part of the small intestine and the percentage of patients with PJS who developed complications. METHODS: Single center, retrospective chart review study of outpatients with PJS who underwent a video capsule endoscopy study between January 2006 and January2016. RESULTS: A total of 16 patients were identified with PJS; mean age was 40 years. Female gender was predominant with 9 patients. Polyps were found in the duodenum, jejunum and ileum in 33%, 80% and 26 % respectively. Sixty percent of the patients had further evaluation with deep enteroscopy of the small intestine and 88 % of them showed small intestine polyps. Colonoscopy was done in 13 of the patients and polyps were found in 11 patients. 33% of patients had complications with intussusceptions or small bowel obstruction and all of them had jejunal polyps. 100% of females had polyps in the small intestine and 33% of them developed complications. 6 patients had polyps larger than 20 mm in the jejunum and 4 had complications with either intussusceptions or small bowel obstruction. CONCLUSIONS: VCE has the ability to visualize more polyps compared to current deep enteroscopy devices. There is a direct relationship between the size of the polyp, location and the risk of complication. Polyps of at least 20mm in size, primarily in the jejunum had a high complication rate in this study of 67%. VCE is a valuable tool in evaluating patients with PJS and allows for monitoring of the small bowel and will further help to determine patients at high risk of complications. However, VCE was found in this study to be inferior to upper endoscopy for the detection of gastric polyps.
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Theoretical and Experimental Analysis of the Antioxidant Features of Phenol and Aniline Model CompoundsReactive oxygen and nitrogen species (ROS/RNS) have been implicated in the aging process and numerous diseases including cancer, cardiovascular diseases, neurodegenerative diseases and diabetes. Several natural products such and polyphenols including resveratrol have been investigated as potential antioxidants preventing and/or treating diseases related to oxidative stress. We intend to gain better insight into the mechanism of action of these bioactive molecules and ultimately develop new derivatives with improved antioxidant capacity. Our computational and experimental studies on resveratrol-inspired hydrazone derivatives have shown that an -NH group may act as a better radical scavenger than the phenolic-OH that is commonly found in natural polyphenols. To assess this idea, several simple phenol and aniline derivatives were selected as model compounds and basic structural, energetic and electronic features of these compounds were calculated by density functional theory (DFT) to determine the structural characteristics that has major effect on the radical scavenging activity. The structures were analyzed at the B3LYP/6-31G(d,p) level of theory using Gaussian09 to identify the ionization potential, N-H dissociation enthalpy, proton affinity, HOMO/LUMO energies, and the band gaps. This data was correlated with the experimental antioxidant activity determined in three assays: 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH), 2,2′-azino-bis(3-ethylbenzthiazoline6-sulphonic acid) (ABTS), and oxygen radical absorbance capacity (ORAC). The % radical scavenging has been analyzed as a function of the above determined structural parameters in order to identify the role of the structural, energetic and electronic features in determining the antioxidant activity.
