UW News

May 10, 2007

General Clinical Research Center awards 2007 pilot and feasibility grants

The UW General Clinical Research Center (GCRC) has named the recipients of its 2007 GCRC Pilot and Feasibility Grants, designed to facilitate career development in clinical research.


The GCRC is a universitywide resource funded by the National Institutes of Health to support peer-reviewed clinical investigations and other funded research involving human subjects. It is part of a national network of 78 centers that provide optimal settings for medical investigators to conduct safe, controlled inpatient and outpatient medical studies. The centers also provide infrastructure and resources that support career development for junior investigators. The Pilot & Feasibility Grant program is part of that effort. Mary Lenora “Nora” Disis, professor of medicine, is program director of the UW center.


Each year, the GCRC seeks applications for well-defined projects to support. The grants are open to young investigators or established investigators proposing a new direction in their clinical research. Up to three pilot projects are funded at a maximum budget of $25,000 each. There is one award for each of the center’s units — Adult, Pediatric, and Biotherapeutics. All applications undergo rigorous scientific peer review.


The 2007 grant recipients are:


Nathalia Jimenez, UW acting assistant professor of anesthesiology, who will study differences in morphine pharmacokinetics between Latino and non-Latino Caucasian pediatric patients. The project aims to determine if differences in opioid analgesic requirements for pain treatment between Latino and non-Latino Caucasian pediatric patients are explained by differences in the pharmacokinetics of morphine or its metabolites.



Brian Till, senior oncology fellow in the Clinical Research Division, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, who will study adoptive therapy for relapsed lymphoma with genetically modified CD20-specific T cells. This study will test the feasibility of treating mantle cell and indolent B-cell lymphomas using autologous T lymphocytes that have been genetically modified to recognize the CD20 antigen present on B cells.



Nathaniel F. Watson, UW assistant professor of neurology, who will study sleep duration and metabolism in twins. This study of identical twin pairs discordant for sleep duration will test the hypothesis that sleep restriction increases the risk of diabetes and heart disease by adversely affecting key metabolic parameters.