Information on how to apply will be available in October.
PILOT PROJECT AWARD INFORMATION
For the last several years, The Department of Medicine has sponsored a Pilot Project Grant Program to support the research of junior faculty members. Below is a list of the projects award winners from 2021 through 2025.
PILOT PROJECT AWARDEES 2025
Project Title: “Mycobacterium Tuberculosis Folate Metabolites Acting as Inhibitory Ligands for MR1- restricted T cells”
Principal Investigator: Dr. Charles Vorkas
Division of Infectious Diseases
Mentor: Dr. Bettina Fries
Project Title: ”Large Language Model Assisted Generation of Discharge Summaries”
Principal Investigator: Dr. Rachel Wong
Division of General Medicine and Department of Biomedical Informatics
Mentor: N/A
Project Title: “Role of Multimodal Imaging to Prognosticate and Track Pharmacologic Responses in Transthyretin Amyloidosis”
Principal Investigator: Dr. Kristine Jang
Division of Cardiology
Mentor: Dr. Andreas Kalogeropoulos
Project Title: "Epigenetic and Transcriptomic Profiling of Cystic Tubular Cells from Pkd1 Mutant Mouse Model”
Principal Investigator: Dr. Siu Chiu Chan
Division of Nephrology and Hypertension
Mentor: Dr. Peter Igarashi
Project Title: “Explore the Therapeutic Potential of Fenretinide in P53 Mutated Acute Myeloid Leukemia”
Principal Investigator: Dr. Suhu Liu
Division of Hematology and Oncology
Mentor: Dr. Yusuf Hannun
PILOT PROJECT AWARDEES 2024
Project Title: “PLVAP mediates endothelial cytoskeletal alterations and injury in glomerular disease”
Principal Investigator: Dr. Chelsea Estrada
Division of Nephrology and Hypertension
Mentor: Dr. Sandeep Mallipattu
Project Title: “The use of Natural Language Processing to Predict acute Kidney Injury in Critically ill patients”
Principal Investigator: Dr. Farrukh Koraishy
Division of Nephrology and Hypertension
Mentor: N/A
Project Title: Aging: “Developmental change of PI3 Kinase signaling in the heart”
Principal Investigator: Dr. Zhongju Liu
Division of General, Geriatric and Hospital Medicine
Mentor: Dr. Ira Cohen
Project Title: “Infectious diseases complications, screening, and PrEP uptake among Veterans who inject drugs”
Principal Investigator: Dr. Audun Lier
Mentor: Dr. Bettina Fries
Division of Infectious Diseases
Mentor: Dr. Richard Lin, VAMC
Project Title: “Diaphragm breath support exercise training in patients w/persistent symptoms following COVID-19: a parallel-group, single-blind, randomized controlled trial”Principal Investigator: Dr. Abigail Chua
Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care Medicine and Sleep Medicine
Mentor: Dr. Sahar Ahmad
PILOT PROJECT AWARDEES 2023
Project Title: "Role of Left Atrial Strain Parameters in Diagnosis of Left Ventricular (LV) Diastolic Dysfunction in Individuals with Preserved Systolic Function"
Principal Investigator: Dr. Neda Dianati-Maleki
Division of Cardiology
Mentor: Dr. Smadar Kort
Project Title: "Disentangling the Effect of Black/African Ancestry from Confounding Variables on Colorectal Cancer Biology"
Principal Investigator: Dr. Alexandra Guillaume
Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology
Mentor: Dr. Ellen Li
Project Title: "Development of High Throughput Assays for Screening of Novel Small Molecular Therapeutics"
Principal Investigator: Dr. Sian Piret
Division of Nephrology and Hypertension
Mentor: Dr. Sandeep Mallipattu
Project Title: "MAIT Cell Subpopulations Responding to Recent Mycobacterium Tuberculosis Infection"
Principal Investigator: Dr. Charles Vorkas
Division of Infectious Diseases
Mentor: Dr. Bettina Fries
PILOT PROJECT AWARDEES 2022
Project Title: "Use of Colchicine to Prevent Atrial Fibrillation after Ablation"
Principal Investigator: Abhijeet Singh, M.D.
Assistant Professor
Division of Cardiology
Mentor: Andreas Kalogeropoulos, M.D., Ph.D., M.P.H.
Project Title: "Establishing a Synergistic Mouse Model to Study Immunotherapy Resistance of STK11 Altered Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer and Potential Mitigation Strategies"
Principal Investigator: Harold Bien, M.D., Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Division of Hematology and Medical Oncology, & Northport VA Medical Center
Mentor: Richard Lin, M.D.
Project Title: "Targeted Therapy for Pancreatic Cancer"
Principal Investigator: Agnieszka Bialkowska, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology
Mentor: N/A
PILOT PROJECT AWARDEES 2021
Project Title: "Influence of stromal-epithelial interaction on the intestinal epithelium regeneration post-irradiation injury"
Principal Investigator: Dr. Agnieszka Bialkowska in the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology
Mentor: Dr. Vincent Yang
Project Title: "Identification of Amblyomma americanum-borne pathogens in human patients"
Principal Investigator: Dr. Luis Marcos in the Division of Infectious Diseases
Collaborators: Drs. Hwan Kim and Jorge Benach, Department of Microbiology and Immunology
Mentor: N/A
Project Title: "Natriuretic Peptides, Fluid Management, and Outcomes in COVID-19"
Principal Investigator: Dr. Andreas P. Kalogeropoulos in the Division of Cardiology
Collaborator: Dr. Hal Skopicki
Project Title: "Sublethal doxorubicin promotes breast cancer metastasis though regulation of neutral
sphingomyelinase 2"
Principal Investigator: Dr. Daniel Canals, Department of Medicine, Cancer Center
Mentor: Dr. Yusuf Hannun
Project Title: "Endotoxin activity assay results and kidney outcomes in intensive care"
Principal Investigator: Dr. Sobia Khan in the Division of Nephrology
Mentor: Dr. Sandeep Mallipatu
Collaborator: Dr. Sahar Ahmad
