Winners of 2018 Clinical Research Achievement Awards announced

lackner, lamont, dandona.

L to R: Jeffrey M. Lackner, PsyD, Award Winner; Michael J. LaMonte, PhD, MPH, Award Finalist and Paresh Dandona, MD, PhD, Award Finalist

Published December 19, 2018 This content is archived.

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Irritable bowel syndrome, heart failure and diabetes were the subjects of locally performed research studies that have been chosen as winners of the Buffalo Translational Consortium (BTC) 2018 Clinical Research Achievement Awards.

The awards, now in their third year, honor outstanding accomplishments in clinical research performed at a BTC institution with investigators from the University at Buffalo or Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center serving as the lead authors. The research must have been published or in press in the past 12 months.

Award winner Jeffrey M. Lackner, PsyD, professor in the Department of Medicine, Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, was selected for a study titled “Improvement in Gastrointestinal Symptoms After Cognitive Behavior Therapy for Refractory Irritable Bowel Syndrome.” It was published in the July 2018 issue of Gastroenterology.

Recognized as an award finalist is Michael J. LaMonte, PhD, MPH, associate professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Environmental Health, School of Public Health and Health Professions for a study titled “Physical Activity and Incidence of Heart Failure in Postmenopausal Women,” published in the September 2018 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

Also recognized as an award finalist is Paresh Dandona, MD, PhD, SUNY Distinguished Professor, Department of Medicine, Jacobs School, for a study titled “Efficacy and Safety of Dapaglifloxin in Patients with Inadequately Controlled Type 1 Diabetes: The DEPICT-1 52-week Study.” The article was published in the December 2018 issue of Diabetes Care.

“Our Clinical Research Achievement Awards are designed to highlight the most innovative and impactful clinical research being performed by clinical researchers throughout the Buffalo Translational Consortium,” stated Anne B. Curtis, MD, SUNY Distinguished Professor, Charles and Mary Bauer Professor and chair, Department of Medicine, Jacobs School. “These research studies have directly led to improvements in the health and wellbeing of patients in our community and beyond.”

The BTC awards competition seeks to identify major advances resulting from the region’s investment in research to benefit the health and welfare of the Western New York community. To be eligible for an award, the research should contribute to the understanding of human disease and physiology and demonstrate an impact on the understanding, prevention and diagnosis or treatment of disease.

“These three clinical studies by outstanding research teams report important advances that will make a real difference in improving health,” reflects Timothy F. Murphy, MD, SUNY Distinguished Professor and director of the CTSI. “They were chosen from an impressive group of submissions from BTC investigators. They align perfectly with the vision of the CTSI to perform innovative research to improve the health of our community and the nation.”

The winners of the competition will be invited to present their research at the Clinical and Translational Science Institute Annual Forum on March 20, 2019. Award winner and finalists will be given a travel stipend to attend Translational Science 2019, a conference to be held in Washington, D.C., March 5-8, 2019.