2021 Partnership and Innovation Accelerator Pilot Grant Program

2021 PIAP Grant Program Application Is Now Open! PIAP grants are one-year competitive awards to facilitate collaborations between academic researchers from Rutgers University, Princeton University, and/or New Jersey Institute of Technology with community organizations so they can work together on health research that benefits our communities. Click here to apply. Don’t have a community partner?  Click here for a referral to a community organization in our Network of Networks.

2021 PIAP Program Webinar Topics include: Application process and deadlines Defining community partnerships Regulatory approvals Review process Q&A To access the webinar slides, click here.

New Jersey Healthcare Essential WoRker Outreach and Education Study - Testing Overlooked Occupations

We have launched! New Jersey Healthcare Essential WoRker Outreach and Education Study - Testing Overlooked Occupations, or NJ HEROES TOO, focuses on the Black and Latinx communities disproportionately affected by COVID-19 in places where Rutgers academic medical centers are deeply rooted. NJ ACTS partnered with community and health care organizations in Essex, Middlesex, Passaic, and Union counties to co-design this study. To learn more about NJ HEROES TOO, click here.

Services

The NJ ACTS CEC Community Engagement Virtual Salons bring researchers together with patients, community members, and health care stakeholders to actively participate in cross-talk. It provides a forum for generating research questions, identifying evidence gaps, and defining outcomes meaningful to patients.  If you are interested in participating in a Salon, please contact our team using this consult form.

Previously held Community Engagement Virtual Salons:

Mobile Health Intervention to Promote Sun Protection & Skin Cancer Screenings among Latinx Community Zhaomeng Niu, PhD October 30th, 2020

Increasing Access to Mental Health: Community-Based Clinics Youth Development Clinic of Newark Beth Barbarasch, PsyD; Jennifer Cruz, PhD; Mark Kitzie, PsyD December 11th, 2020

The Diabetes LIFEMAP© & Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) Dr. Shilpa Pai, Dr. David Bleich, and Carmen Wheeler Rutgers University- Robert Wood Johnson Medical School March 4rd, 2021

A Youth-Led Digital Education Intervention to Improve Adult Blood Pressure Sara Heinert, PhD May 17th, 2021

Previously held Healthcare Stakeholder Salon in Action:

One-on-One Consultations The CEC helps researchers obtain project-specific input from research, healthcare, community, and patient stakeholders to enhance research design, implementation, and dissemination. Referrals The CEC can connect you to experts through our Network of Networks. We help build and sustain long-lasting relationships. If you're interested in working with us, click here to learn more.  Our consultations are free and the information you provide is confidential.

If your research has benefited from one or more NJ ACTS resources, please remember to:  Cite our CTSA grant, UL1TR003017, KL2TR003018, or TL1TR003019 in any relevant publications, abstracts, chapters, and/or posters. Submit your publications to PubMed Central (PMC) for compliance with the NIH Public Access Policy. Share your research updates with us by sending an email to: njactscommunity@rwjms.rutgers.edu

News

Princeton Technology Could Help Improve COVID-19 Vaccines A new technology being developed by Princeton University researchers and alumni could offer a more effective and robust delivery method for COVID-19 vaccines. Compared to current vaccines, the technology, which relies on a new type of nanoparticle, could introduce five times as much of the vaccine’s active ingredient, mRNA, into recipients’ cells. To read the full story, please click here.

NJIT Software May Help Scientists Communicate About COVID Every complex scientific field needs an ontology, and soon the primary one that covers COVID-19 will be easier for medication and vaccination researchers to understand, using new interpretive methods and software. Ontologies are essentially dictionaries and maps of medical terms. To read the full story, please click here.

Community Spotlight NJ HEROES TOO Partners

The NJ HEROES TOO project was co-created and co-design by our community and healthcare partners. We will be featuring all 22 of our partners in this section of our Quarterly Newsletter through March 2022.

Hillside Senior Recreation Center The Township of Hillside is governed by the Faulkner Act, with a population of 21,404 and approximately 210 full-time employees, the Township of Hillside is located in Union County. The township of Hillside in Union County is diverse, with approximately 53% of residents identifying as Black or African American and 18% reporting as Hispanic or Latino. The Hillside Senior Center offers quality and compassionate services for our senior community. Our focus is providing exceptional recreational, social, and creative services by people who truly care in an environment that promotes community pride and wellness.    To learn more, please click here.

Jazz4PCA The mission of Jazz4PCA is to advocate for men’s wellness by supplying accurate information about prostate cancer, providing access to free or low-cost screening and to increase exposure to live Jazz music. The team at Jazz for Prostate Cancer Awareness is committed to raising awareness within our communities, supporting families, and advocating for prostate cancer survivors. In addition, Jazz for Prostate Cancer Awareness partners with qualified healthcare practitioners in research opportunities that would have a greater impact on the communities we serve.  To learn more, please click here.

Mobile Family Success Center The Mobile Family Success Center (MFSC) of Middlesex County is a community-based, family centered program, utilizing neighborhood gathering places where any community resident can go for family support, information, and services. The program currently focuses on bringing services to East Brunswick, Edison, North Brunswick, Piscataway and Sayreville, but events are open to all residents of Middlesex County. Started in 2013, the Mobile Family Success Center seeks to strengthen individual and family functioning and empower people to acquire the knowledge, skills, and resources they need to succeed and to provide an optimal environment for children’s development throughout Middlesex County.  To learn more, please click here.

New Brunswick NAACP Area Branch Founded in 1909, the NAACP is the nation’s oldest and largest civil rights organization. From the ballot box to the classroom, the thousands of dedicated workers, organizers, leaders, and members who make up the NAACP continue to fight for social justice for all Americans. The New Brunswick Area Branch is one of over two thousand NAACP local units nationwide. The branch was chartered to serve the following municipalities: Bound Brook, East Brunswick, Franklin Township (Somerset County), Highland Park, Hillsborough, Middlesex Borough, Milltown, New Brunswick, North Brunswick, Piscataway, Sayreville, Somerville, South Brunswick, and South River. The demographic profile of the NAACP branch membership is primarily African American, but it also has White and Hispanic members. To learn more, please click here.

New Brunswick Tomorrow For more than 40 years, New Brunswick Tomorrow has driven social revitalization for the city by taking on the issues that matter most to city residents and families, impacting the lives of 56,000 individuals who are 49% Latinx, 16% Black and 75% low-income. NBT was founded on a vision – a vision that serves as a guidepost for the city’s revitalization, where all New Brunswick residents have the opportunity for a high quality of life; including but not limited to, education, employment, food, health, housing, and safety. Through a shared value of community and partnership, we have brought diverse interests to the table to inspire people and mobilize resources to strengthen our community. We're building on our successes to better the lives of the residents of New Brunswick, while also driving change to move people forward. To learn more, please click here.

New Hope Now Community Development Corporation The New Hope Baptist Church has always been a staple of service and pride throughout the community at large. New Hope began its services as a “mission” and organized its Community Development Corporation in 1999. New Hope Now Community Development Corporation (NHNCDC) was created and founded by Pastor Joe A. Carter, and the leadership of The New Hope Baptist Church, as the social services branch of the church. New Hope Now Community Development Corporation was established to meet the social, economic, and Health and Wellness needs of the community. New Hope Now Community Development Corporation (NHNCDC) is a State of New Jersey 501 (c3) non-profit. To learn more, please click here.

Stay tuned for more Community Spotlights of our NJ HEROES TOO partners in our upcoming Quarterly Newsletter issues.

COVID-19 Resources

The situation around the current spread of COVID-19 is changing rapidly. We have compiled resource links for the general community highlighting local resources across New Jersey, ways to get involved, and mental and physical wellness. Visit our COVID-19 page for resources for individuals and community partners.  Check out our YouTube channel and blog to stay up to date with COVID-19 related news across the consortium.

COVID-19 Vaccines May Be Less Effective in Some People with Cancer People with blood cancers seem to be less protected by COVID-19 vaccines than people with other cancers and without cancer, three new studies suggest. Experts believe this limited effectiveness is likely due to patients’ weakened immune systems. To learn more, click here.

Free Rides to the Vaccine! From May 24 through July 4, Uber is offering up to 4 free rides (up to $25 each) to and from your vaccination appointments. We’re almost there. Together, we can help get America moving again. To learn more, click here.

COVID-19 Research Studies

The New Jersey Alliance for Clinical and Translational Science compiled resources for translating COVID-19 from bench to bedside. Visit the site.  To learn more about funding opportunities and innovation challenges to assist the academic research community in mitigating COVID-19, click here. RBHS is actively engaged in scientific discovery surrounding COVID-19. To learn more about the RBHS COVID-19 clinical trials, please click here. Check out the COVID-19 related research across the consortium. Rutgers Awarded $5 Million NIH Grant to Improve Access to COVID-19 Testing. The New Jersey Alliance for Clinical and Translational Science received funding to launch outreach campaigns and expand access to testing for underserved and vulnerable communities in the state. The Rutgers-led study called the New Jersey Healthcare Essential Worker Outreach and Education Study – Testing Overlooked Occupations, or NJ HEROES TOO, will be funded under NIH’s Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics (RADx) initiative, RADx Underserved Populations (RADx-UP) program, according to the university. The program supports research that aims to better understand COVID-19 testing patterns among underserved and vulnerable populations; strengthen the data on disparities in infection rates, disease progression, and outcomes; and develop strategies to reduce the disparities in COVID-19 testing, according to NIH. To read the full story. The principal investigators of the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine clinical trials at Rutgers discuss how the university became a site, and their challenges and successes. In the race to develop a vaccine to battle the coronavirus, Rutgers has served as a site for Phase 3 COVID-19 clinical trials for two of the country’s pharmaceutical giants. Jeffrey Carson, a Distinguished Professor of Medicine at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and principal investigator at Rutgers for the Johnson & Johnson trial, and Shobha Swaminathan, associate professor of medicine at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School and clinical research site leader for the Moderna trial, discuss how the medical schools were selected and give an inside look at the process of creating a safe and effective vaccine. To read the full story. Researchers Study Virus Evolution Trends Relevant for COVID-19 and Other Pandemics. One year after the first COVID-19 case was reported, researchers and medical professionals continue to learn more about the virus that causes it. Through a $188,253 National Science Foundation grant, Rutgers University‒Camden researcher Andrey Grigoriev is studying the RNA genome of the coronavirus behind COVID-19 – and trying to anticipate how to combat its mutations in the future. “Viruses undergo frequent mutations, and the worldwide effort of sequencing the RNA of thousands of coronavirus isolates allows us to analyze them using computational methods,” says Grigoriev, a Rutgers‒Camden professor of biology. “We search for the regions in the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus genome that mutate rarely and try to understand what the reasons for such stability of these regions are.” To read the full story. Neuroscience Professor Awarded NIH Grant to Study Links Between COVID-19 and Alzheimer’s. Mark Gluck, Professor of Neuroscience at the Center for Molecular & Behavioral Neuroscience (CMBN) at the School of Arts & Sciences-Newark, has received a new grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to study the cognitive, neural, and immunological consequences of COVID-19 in older African Americans and how they relate to risk for Alzheimer’s Disease.  With this grant, Gluck seeks to investigate the links between Alzheimer’s Disease and COVID-19, which share common immunological pathways and age-related risk. This is particularly critical for African Americans since they are known be at elevated risk for age-related cognitive decline and Alzheimer’s Disease, and are also currently experiencing the highest overall COVID-19 mortality rates. Understanding how COVID-19 impacts cognition, neural function, and risk for Alzheimer’s may lead to new insights that inform clinically relevant future research on how age-related decline and dysfunction within the immune system may play a causal role in Alzheimer’s. To read the full story. Rutgers Begins COVID-19 Prevalence Study in Newark. Rutgers will help determine the prevalence of the coronavirus in Newark, one of the cities hardest hit by the pandemic, as part of the National Institutes of Health COVID-19 Prevention Network (CoVPN) response to the deadly global outbreak. The university is one of 26 sites in the country chosen by the agency’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to conduct community seroprevalence studies. “There are still so many questions unanswered and things we have to discover in real time in relation to this pandemic,” said Shobha Swaminathan, clinical research site leader, Rutgers Research with a Heart and associate professor at the Rutgers New Jersey Medical School who will lead the study in Newark. Given that COVID-19 causes a lot of asymptomatic infections, this study will help us to better understand how the virus has impacted our community.” To read the full story.

We would like to share your resources with the community. Please email your information to njactscommunity@rjwms.rutgers.edu  to contribute to our next Quarterly Newsletter issue.

Upcoming Events

AHRQ Digital Healthcare Research  July 1, 1pm ET Register now for a free 90-minute AHRQ web conference to discuss how digital healthcare has been affected by the pandemic. Eligible providers can earn up to 1.5 CE/CME contact hours for participating in the live web conference. Learn more and register here.

Research Resources Workshop Wednesday (R2W2)  Every 2nd Wednesday 4-5pm The Office of the Vice-Chancellor for Academic Affairs and Research announced their 2021 R2W2 Series, featuring shared resource core facilities available to Rutgers researchers. Learn more about these events here.

SAVE THE DATE FIRST ANNUAL NJ ACTS SYMPOSIUM: TRANSLATION MEDICINE AND SCIENCE September 22 from 12:00-4:00pm and September 23 from 8:00-12:00pm. Session topics and a call for abstracts for talks and posters will be issued shortly.

Free NIH Seminars for Clinical Researchers Sex and Gender in Research Interest in sex and gender in research—and resources to help investigators—is growing. In the 5 years since NIH enacted its pioneering Policy on Sex as a Biological Variable (SABV) there has been a lot of activity, including increased attention on sex differences and influences and many questions and requests for assistance.     The NIH Office of Research on Women’s Health (ORWH) has issued two new courses, Sex as a Biological Variable: A Primer and Bench to Bedside: Integrating Sex and Gender to Improve Human Health.    Click here to see the entire NIH suite of free e-learning offerings.

We would like to share your events with the community. Please email your event details to njactscommunity@rjwms.rutgers.edu  to contribute to our next Quarterly Newsletter issue.

New Jersey Alliance for Clinical and Translational Science http://njacts.rbhs.rutgers.edu This newsletter is supported by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences of the National Institutes of Health under award number, UL1TR003017 to Rutgers University. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not represent the official views of the NIH. You are receiving this newsletter because you are a member of NJ ACTS or have signed up to receive our emails.  To add a subscriber, please click here. Send story ideas, events, and resources to njactscommunity@rwjms.rutgers.edu Copyright 2021 New Jersey Alliance for Clinical and Translational Science, all rights reserved.