With more than 500 registrants at the start of the event, hundreds of people attended the virtual 2020 Indiana Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute (CTSI) Annual Meeting on Friday, September 11. The event had two plenary speakers and was completely online, utilizing both Zoom and Microsoft Teams to connect participants with the presenters.
Brian Druker, MD, the director of the Knight Cancer Institute at Oregon Health & Science University, was the winner of this year’s August M. Watanabe Prize in Translational Research. He gave the first plenary presentation titled, “Imatinib as a Paradigm of Targeted Cancer Therapies.” During his remarks, he reminded annual meeting participants that breakthroughs require knowledge, often occur when different fields of investigation converge, and require seeing things differently.
“If we make progress slow and steady, that’s how you win a race,” said Druker. “I’ve run a few marathons and I recognize that this is a marathon. If we expect everyone to be a sprinter, we’re never going to win. I think we just have to give recognition to the fact that most of us are doing really tough work and it’s hard to get funding, but you have to persevere and do the best you can and hope you are making a contribution by the work that you’re doing.”
Consuelo Wilkins, MD, Vice President for Health Equity at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, as well as the Associate Dean for Health Equity and Professor of Medicine at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, gave the second plenary presentation during the afternoon session of the annual meeting. Her remarks, titled, “Confronting Racial Inequities through Research,” focused on racial inequities and health disparities in the United States.
“If we’re really going to address these inequities at a systemic level, we’re going to have to have tools, consultants and coaches to guide people through them,” said Wilkins. “When people have time to think about it and reflect, there are really fantastic ideas about what we can be doing differently. If you’re studying COVID-19 right now and you don’t have a substantial percentage of your study population that’s racially and ethnically diverse, or a linguistic minority, then you are not studying the right disease.”
Images (L-R): 1. Slide from Brian Druker’s presentation, 2. Brian Druker, MD, 3. Brian Druker thanks patients during presentation,
4. Consuelo Wilkins shares key points during presentation, 5. Consuelo Wilkins, MD, 6. Slide from Consuelo Wilkins’ presentation
The new Indiana CTSI Co-Directors, Dr. Sharon Moe, MD, and Dr. Sarah Wiehe, MD, MPH, led the annual meeting and gave their own remarks about their plans for the program moving forward. Additional speakers included:
- Emily Sims, MD, Watanabe Translational Scholar: Using circulating proinsulin to understand beta cell stress during the evolution of type 1 diabetes
- Tuan Tran, MD, PhD, Watanabe Translational Scholar: Baseline transcriptional predictors of malaria outcomes in African children
- Heidi Beidinger-Burnett, PhD, MPH, Director, Master of Science in Global Health Program, University of Notre Dame: Development of an affordable and useful screening kit for the presence of dangerous lead
- Milan Radovich, PhD, Associate Professor of Surgery, Indiana University School of Medicine: Recent discovery in triple negative breast cancer is revolutionizing cancer clinical trials
- Kinam Park, PhD, Showalter Distinguished Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Purdue University: Developing a long-acting and affordable opioid treatment
- Peter Embi, MD, President & CEO, Regenstrief Institute: Indiana Pandemic Information Collaborative
View speaker bios here.
Annual meeting participants were also invited to join concurrent breakout rooms for the poster session. View the virtual poster session here. Read the poster abstract e-booklet here.
Poster session award winners were:
- Nathan Alves, PhD, IU School of Medicine – Real-World Implementation of UV N95 Mask Decontamination in the Hospital Setting (Investigator)
- Angela Campbell, MPH, PhD, IU School of Medicine – Pharmacologic Therapy Among Opioid Exposed Infants: Disparities by Race (TL1 Postdoc)
- Heba Ismail, MD, Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis – Evaluating the Effect of Prebiotics on the Gut Microbiome Profile and β-cell Function in Newly-Diagnosed Type 1 Diabetes (KL2)
- Fahmi Mesmar, PhD, Indiana University-Bloomington – Adipocyte differentiation and/or lipid accumulation are induced by commonly used pesticides in Indiana (Investigator)
- Jheel Patel, IU School of Medicine – Silencing of the neuronal nitric oxide synthase gene in the basolateral amygdala impairs cued fear memory consolidation (TL1 Predoc)
- Dhushyanth Viswanath, Purdue University – Bilirubin-Coated Radio-Luminescent Particles for Radiation-Induced Photodynamic Therapy (Investigator)
- Ebony Williams, MS, IU School of Medicine – Enrollment of Diverse Populations in the INGENIOUS Clinical Trial (TL1 Predoc)
The 2020 Indiana CTSI Annual Report was also debuted during the annual meeting. View the annual report here.
Images (L-R): 1. Emily Sims, MD, Watanabe Translational Scholar, 2. Slide from Emily Sims’ presentation,
3. Tuan Tran, MD, PhD, Watanabe Translational Scholar, 4. Slide from Tuan Tran’s presentation,
5. Slide from Heidi Beidinger-Burnett’s presentation, 6. Heidi Beidinger-Burnett, PhD, MPH,
7. Slide from Milan Radovich’s presentation, 8. Milan Radovich, PhD,
9. Kinam Park, PhD, 10. Slide from Kinam Park’s presentation, 11. Peter Embi, MD, 12. Slide from Peter Embi’s presentation
The 2021 Indiana CTSI Annual Meeting is currently scheduled for Friday, September 17, 2021.
View the entire 2020 Annual Meeting here. Or use the times listed below to navigate to a specific session.
0:14:11 Brian Druker, MD
1:15:53 Emily Sims, MD
1:33:55 Tuan Tran, MD, PhD
2:03:53 Heidi Beidinger-Burnett, PhD, MPH
2:20:19 Milan Radovich, PhD
2:34:42 Kinam Park, PhD
2:49:04 Peter Embi, MD
4:04:21 Consuelo Wilkins, MD
