March 20 CTSI forum features UB’s Halterman, awards presentations

An exploration of therapeutic opportunities for stroke patients, presentations on award-winning studies focused on childhood obesity and cancer, updates on the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), and an overview of the latest news from the University at Buffalo Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) are highlights of the 2024 CTSI Annual Forum on March 20.

The forum will be held in person from 12:30 to 4:30 p.m. in the Murphy Family Seminar Room (5019 A&B) at the Clinical and Translational Research Center (CTRC) on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus. See full agenda and registration link.

As outlined in a February 7 CTSI story, the forum will include a keynote address followed by presentations from the 2023 Buffalo Translational Consortium (BTC) Clinical Research Achievement Awards Top Award recipient and Finalists. To summarize these four presentations, and to highlight the importance of plain language — the subject of the 2023 Annual Forum’s panel discussion — the CTSI used AI tools (including ChatGPT-4 and Microsoft Edge Copilot). The AI-created summaries below were then combined, edited, and shared with the speakers for review and additional editing.

• Marc Halterman, MD, PhD, Senior Associate Dean and Executive Director, Office of Research, Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, “Lung-brain Coupling in Acute Ischemic Stroke: Mechanisms and Therapeutic Opportunities” (Keynote): In his keynote speech, he will discuss the evolving understanding of organ-organ communication in the pathophysiology of acute ischemic stroke, focusing on the role of the lung and how understanding lung-brain coupling may open new and exciting therapeutic opportunities to treat stroke and other cerebrovascular conditions.

• Leonard H. Epstein, PhD, SUNY Distinguished Professor and Division Chief, Behavioral Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, Jacobs School, “Family-based Behavioral Treatment for Childhood Obesity Implemented in Pediatric Primary Care” (Top Award Recipient): He will present his work on how to help families with multigenerational obesity lose weight by involving families and fostering positive changes in lifestyle, nutrition, and physical activity. This study generalized decades of research in specialty clinics to pediatric primary care settings.

• Robert Fenstermaker, MD, Professor of Neurosurgery and Oncology, Chair, Department of Neurosurgery, Director, Neuro-Oncology Program, Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, “Phase IIa Study of SurVaxM Plus Adjuvant Temozolomide for Newly Diagnosed Glioblastoma” (Finalist): His study investigated the combination of SurVaxM, a peptide vaccine targeting survivin (a molecule highly expressed by glioblastoma cells), with adjuvant temozolomide (TMZ) in patients newly diagnosed with glioblastoma, a fast-growing and aggressive type of brain cancer.

• Ram Samudrala, PhD, Professor and Chief, Division of Bioinformatics, Department of Biomedical Informatics, Jacobs School, “Multiscale Analysis and Validation of Effective Drug Combinations Targeting Driver KRAS Mutations in Non-small Cell Lung Cancer” (Finalist): He will present his team's work on finding the best combinations of drugs to treat lung cancer patients with a specific gene/protein mutation. His research provides insights into potential drug combinations for treating non-small cell lung cancer.
  

Reflecting on the 2024 forum agenda, CTSI Director Timothy F. Murphy, MD, SUNY Distinguished Professor, calls UB’s Halterman “an accomplished, NIH-funded, nationally recognized physician scientist in neurology." Halterman joined the university faculty in October 2023.

“This will be a great opportunity to hear about Dr. Halterman’s work, which explores his novel observation that strokes cause lung pathology that increases systemic inflammation and amplifies brain injury following the initial stroke,” Murphy says. “This work is highly translational because altering this brain-lung coupling may lead to reduced injury and better recovery from stroke.”

Halterman’s research career has focused on the cellular and immune signaling pathways that lead to neural damage after stroke and cardiac arrest. Prior to his appointment at UB, Halterman served as chair of the Department of Neurology and co-director of the Neurosciences Institute at the Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University. He has served as principal investigator on grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Department of Defense, and the American Heart Association (AHA); has authored 50 peer-reviewed scholarly publications; and has served as a mentor on training awards from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, National Cancer Institute, and AHA.

In addition to the keynote and awards presentations, the March 20 CTSI forum will include welcoming remarks from Murphy and UB Vice President for Health Sciences and Dean of the Jacobs School Allison Brashear, MD, MBA; updates from NCATS presented by Jennie L. Conroy, PhD, Program Director, Division of Clinical Innovation, CTSA Program Branch, NCATS, NIH; and award recipient introductions from BTC Clinical Research Achievement Awards Oversight Committee Chair Anne B. Curtis, MD, SUNY Distinguished Professor, Department of Medicine, Jacobs School.