News & Events

DOMINION POST (SEPTEMBER 5, 2004)

Cutting Edge Science


DOMINION POST (SEPTEMBER 13, 2004)

Dominion Post Gives Press Coverage to West Virginia University Systems Biology Initiative

The West Virginia University Systems Biology Initiative has recently responded to two request for application from the NIH.

The first project is titled: Interdisciplinary Health Research Training Program. The application proposed to develop a new Interdisciplinary Training Program based in the Systems Biology Initiative at the West Virginia University. This new training program will offer post-doctoral fellows from WVU and the nation opportunities for excellent interdisciplinary training in one of two tracks: Social sciences to or from epidemiology/biostatistics/bioinformatics and social sciences to biomedical sciences. The SyBI is uniquely positioned to direct this training program because this initiative involves faculty from across the university. For this application this brings together the important disciplines of psychology and statistics/bioinformatics from the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences and from the School of Medicine, the disciplines of Behavioral Medicine/Psychiatry, Community Medicine (epidemiology), a range of biomolecular sciences, and the Center for Advanced Imaging that emphasizes neuroimaging. Thus, the combined resources of the West Virginia University provide a synergistic environment for training interdisciplinary fellows. West Virginia University also provides and important resource to the minorities. The department of Community Medicine has numerous research projects designed to study and aid these individuals and this unique and valuable resource would be available to the trainees. The design of the program is to provide the fellow with an individually tailored curriculum to first provide a thorough grounding in their new discipline that includes both didactic and advanced seminar courses during their first year. During their entire training period (two years) there is heavy emphasis on research and fellows will be integrated into on going research projects in their chosen field that will allow them to integrate this research area against a strong conceptual understanding of both their original and new fields. Finally, during their final semester in the program, the students will be mentored in grant writing that will culminate in a grant application submitted to an appropriate agency. At the completion of this period it is expected that each of these individuals will be able to conduct and direct true interdisciplinary research.

The second project title: Meetings & Networks For Methodological Development in Interdisciplinary Research. West Virginia University School of Medicine has a long and productive record of providing health care to the population of the Appalachian region. In spite of this record, cancer of the cervix uteri among Appalachian women is significantly higher than US averages. Statistically the mortality rate due to cervical cancer in New York stat is a the national average, however, the mortality rate for the women of West Virginia is 5.9 cases per 100,000, 1.6 times the national average. Incidence of cervical cancer among the women of Appalachia is almost twice that of the national average while the age-adjusted rate for the Buffalo area is below the national average. Preliminary epidemiological and virological studies in approximately 900 Appalachian women have revealed intriguing clues for these alarming differences. These could speak to differences in access to health care, unhealthy dietary habits, high numbers of sex partners, smoking, human papilloma virus (HPV) incidence, etc. In contrast, we believe that socioeconomically matched women of NW New York will show a much smaller percentage of individuals reporting multiple sex partners, a lower incidence of HPV and other sexually transmitted disease but similarly dietary habits. At its surface, a change in the lifestyle of the Appalachian women should reduce the risk of cervical cancer to at least the national average. However, achieving changes in a lifestyle is difficult and will require the actions of a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary team of individuals. Similarly, as HPV is believed to be a major cofactor in the development of cervical cancer, a successful vaccine for HPV should also reduce the incidence and mortality of cervical cancer but with poor attitudes towards immunizations and limited access to available health care in Appalachia, this alone likely will not affect a significant reduction. Thus, the primary focus of this network will be improvements in detection and the reduction of cervical cancer. Our network will devise new interdisciplinary methods to more effectively diagnose and treat these individuals that will approach this problem from a behavioral science, oncology, epidemiological, molecular biomedical science, demographical, statistical, nanoscience engineering, and computer modeling system biology perspective. However, prevention will be a key goal of this network. Thus, a portion of the network team will focus on community intervention to change lifestyles. However, as previous attempts to change lifestyles engrained for many generation have had limited success, affecting a meaningful change in these lifestyles will require new methods and approaches. The grant would fund a series of meetings, conferences and small pilot studies that would allow the members of this diverse team to launch a coordinated effort.