Marcus G. Pezzolesi, PhD, MPH

Accelerating Gene Discovery in Diabetic Kidney Disease: An Integrated, 'Big-Data' Approach
National Kidney Foundation
07/01/2017 - 06/30/2018

The goal of this project is to accelerate gene discovery in diabetic kidney disease (DKD) by integrating ‘big-data’ from the Utah Population Database (UPDB) and electronic health records for individuals in the UPDB to identify high-risk families that are enriched for DKD.  Data generated as part of this project will be used to guide subsequent whole-genome sequencing-based gene discovery in these families to determine the contribution of variation across the entire genome on renal function decline in DKD.

Paul J. Shami, MD

Clinical Development of JS-K for the Treatment of Cancer
National Cancer Institute
09/21/2017 - 08/31/2019

Dr. Paul Shami and JSK Therapeutics were granted an award from the Small Business Innovation Research Program of the National Cancer Institute to conduct IND-enabling studies of their nitric oxide-generating drug JS-K. JS-K has shown efficacy in animal models of acute myeloid leukemia, multiple myeloma, non-small cell lung cancer and several other solid tumors. Completion of work conducted with this award will allow initiation of Phase I clinical trials of this first-in-class anti-cancer agent.