Awards

The following is a partial list of research grant awards to Duke University Emergency Medicine investigators.

Catherine Staton: NIH (5K01TW010000)
This career development award will allow for the cultural adaptation, validation, and pilot testing of a brief negotiational interview for alcohol use. To do so, the project will 1) describe the current knowledge and perceptions about alcohol use in Tanzania, 2) adapt an evidence-based intervention to the Tanzanian setting and, 3) pilot this intervention in preparation of a large-scale trial.

Catherine Staton: NIH (R21TW010456 and 3R21TW010456-02S1)
The goal of this important project is to build capacity in order to improve the health and quality of life for injury patients, particularly focusing on our five health domains, by (1) understanding and addressing the care transition needs (including any HIV related needs), and (2) creating a resource-appropriate comprehensive care transitions strategy. Ultimately, we will build the research capacity to qualitatively develop and feasibly test this intervention.

Alexander Limkakeng (Francis Keefe Co-PI):  NIH (1U24NS114416-01)
In this proposal, we outline a Hub-spoke complex of academic medical centers with considerable experience in pain management clinical trials and biomarker validation. Our network will leverage existing resources to make clinical trial execution efficient and rapid. Our collection of spokes will provide maximum flexibility, ready to accommodate studies in any well characterized pain condition. Our experienced team will ensure high quality data collection and provide expert counsel to the overall Network leadership team.

Bruce Derrick
This $1M project funded by Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) will investigate the possible role nutritional ketosis could play in delaying or preventing CNS oxygen toxicity. The Duke Center for Hyperbaric Medicine & Environmental Physiology is uniquely equipped to safely investigate human physiology in austere environments through modulation of ambient pressure, gas partial pressures, temperature, immersion, exercise, and electrophysiologic and invasive hemodynamic monitoring while conducting mission-relevant cognitive testing. Subjects’ physiologic responses to these environmental changes are monitored carefully with the subject seated on a cycle ergometer, immersed to the shoulders and breathing from a specially designed apparatus capable of monitoring inspired and expired gas partial pressures with continuous mass spectrometry and respiratory volumes. The system also has the capacity to quickly switch from one breathing gas to another at hyperbaric pressures.

Stephanie Eucker: NIH INNOVATION-ED
Dr. Eucker will lead Duke’s involvement as one of 30 sites in a pragmatic randomized clinical trial (RCT) comparing the effectiveness of sublingual buprenorphine (SL-BUP) versus a 7-day extended-release formulation of buprenorphine (XR-BUP) in 2000 patients with untreated OUD will be conducted in sites achieving competence (e.g. demonstrating ability to enroll patients with OUD and adhere to protocols for administering both formulations of buprenorphine). The primary outcome will be engagement in formal addiction treatment within 7-days post ED visit.

Sam Francis: Society for Academic Emergency Medicine Foundation Career Development Award
With the support of this grant, Dr. Francis, working in the research lab of Dr. Gowthami Arepally, Professor of Medicine and Pathology at Duke, aims to further our understanding of platelet biomarkers through several different avenues. will involve quantification of platelet biomarker release ex-vivo, at the bench of Dr. Francis’s nascent lab. Human thrombi will be generated from both healthy control and patient samples to thoroughly examine the biomarker kinetics over time. Factors examined will include potential clotting disorder effects on thrombus generation and breakdown, anticoagulation effects, and healthy donor variability. By working with Adamas Nanoscience, a biotechnology company, Dr. Francis and colleagues will be able to use antibody-labeled nanodiamonds to bind to specific antigens expressed on activated platelets within thrombi. Finally, these researchers intend to use murine models of venous thrombi to evaluate the biomarker release in an inferior vena cava thrombus model.

Joshua Broder: GE/Emergency Medicine Foundation
Inspired by the smart technology of a hand-held game controller, Dr. Joshua Broder of Duke University walked away the ultimate winner in the inaugural Point of Care Ultrasound (POCUS) Research Challenge offered by the Emergency Medicine Foundation (EMF) and GE Healthcare (GE).  In the end, Dr. Broder’s project edged past the competition to win additional funding. An emergency physician at Duke University, Broder uses a fingernail-sized microchip, mass produced by the millions for cell phones, to translate 2D ultrasound machines into 3D imaging devices. Broder’s goal was to “create a cost effective solution that is convenient to the point of care.” The chip is snapped onto the ultrasound probe to create 3D images. Broder says, “We took existing technology and made it better at a very low cost. We are spectacularly excited about this grant because the fruits of our imagination will become a reality.”

Anjni Joiner: Society for Academic Emergency Medicine Foundation
Through this grant Dr. Joiner will improve understanding of the barriers and potential solutions to accessing rehabilitative and outpatient services for recently injured patients in Moshi, Tanzania. Early data have revealed the financial strain that patients and their families experience when unable to work after an injury is only worsened when, for example, their new physical limitation precludes the use of conventional forms of transport, like buses. Dr. Joiner will collaborate with Dr. Catherine Staton and colleagues to pilot a targeted voucher-based solution to increase transportation to outpatient clinic visits in this population in the hopes of eventually building a sustainable, long-term solution in cooperation with our partners at Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre.

Jinny Ye: Society for Academic Emergency Medicine Foundation Resident and Medical Student Grant, Duke-Duke National University of Singapore Innovations Grant.
This grant will allow Dr. Ye to evaluate the performance of Advanced Life Support Termination of Resuscitation (ALS-TOR) rules with dispatcher-assisted CPR (DA-CPR) compared to bystander-initiated CPR using Singapore Emergency Medical Services data.

Julian Hertz
Dr. Julian Hertz was recently awarded an NIH pilot grant from the Center for AIDS Research (CFAR) at Duke.  This one-year pilot grant will provide him with $60,000 to conduct a case-control study in northern Tanzania to assess the burden of prior myocardial infarction among persons living with HIV.  The study will build off his prior work as an NIH Fogarty International Fellow studying misdiagnosis of myocardial infarction in Tanzania.

Charles Gerardo: Physician Perception And Experiences In Snake Antivenom Antivenom Administration.
Antivenom is currently the gold standard treatment for snake envenomation worldwide. Although vast research has been dedicated to developing efficient antivenom treatment and demonstrating its effectiveness in clinical care, its use in clinical practice by physicians is not widespread with concerns about efficacy and cost-benefit for patients [1-3]. This study will explore physicians’ perceptions and experiences of antivenom use as part of snake envenomation treatment, seeking to elucidate factors that might influence intervention decisions and willingness to prescribe.

Dan Buckland: MEDx Research Pilot Project: Automated Vascular Access for Resource Limited Medical Settings, Kris Hauser, Co-PI.
The goal of this grant is to develop a prototype robot that can identify and cannulate a peripheral vein with an intravenous catheter for use in resource limited settings.