July 2025 | Issue 7

July Highlights

How Dr. Fred Apple transformed cardiac diagnostics and is leaving behind a legacy for the next generation of scholars

Peace. This one word ends all his emails. He’s a product of the peace and love movement that encapsulated the 1960s and 1970s and cherishes the iconic song “Imagine” by John Lennon. It’s a life philosophy he’s carried with him throughout the decades.

Since 1982, Fred Apple, PhD, DABCC, has served in a number of roles at the Hennepin Healthcare Research Institute (HHRI) and Hennepin Healthcare System, including Medical Director of the Clinical Laboratories, Clinical and Forensic Toxicology Laboratory, Clinical Chemistry, Point of Care Testing (POCT), and as part of the medical staff in the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology and as the Principal Investigator (PI) of the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA)-certified Cardiac Biomarkers Trials Laboratory (CBTL).

Awards and Honors

Dr. LeSage and Dr. Harris receive NIH R01 award to study the adverse long-term effects of using ENDS during pregnancy

Mark LeSage, PhD

Andy Harris, PhD

Electronic Nicotine Delivery System (ENDS), more commonly known as vapes, vape pens, electronic cigarettes, e-cigarettes, or e-cigs, are products marketed as healthier alternatives to smoking, but they still contain nicotine and other substances that are harmful to people’s health. Since they’ve only been in the U.S. market since 2007, the adverse long-term effects on the 15% of people using ENDS during pregnancy are relatively unknown.

It's this topic that Hennepin Healthcare Research Institute (HHRI) Investigators Mark LeSage, PhD , and Andy Harris, PhD , are studying through a Research Project Grant Program (R01) award of $3,177,765 from the NIH, National Institute on Drug Abuse. In their study, “Effects of maternal e-cigarette aerosol exposure on nicotine’s addiction-related behavioral and neurobiological effects in offspring,” Dr. LeSage and Dr. Harris will provide data on the potential risk for neurobiological, addiction-related behaviors, and genetic changes in the children of parents who use ENDS during pregnancy.

While ENDS contains lower levels of nicotine than traditional cigarettes, the added chemicals (propylene glycol, ethanol, flavorings, and toxic byproducts) may pose even higher levels of risk to pregnant individuals. The study will examine genetic variations and gene expression due to the use of ENDS and potential neurobiological impacts on behavior, such as ADHD, impulsivity-related disorders, and tobacco addiction, through a control group of non-nicotine ENDS aerosols and nicotine-containing ENDS aerosols. This study will provide new insights to the public and the FDA about the risks of using ENDS during pregnancy.

Please join us in congratulating Dr. LeSage and Dr. Harris on this new award!

Dr. Lyden and Dr. Wood honored by The Alliance

Congratulations to Grace Lyden, PhD, and Nicholas Wood, PhD, who have been selected as part of the Organ Donation and Transplantation Alliance (The Alliance)'s 40 under 40 honorees! The list recognizes young professionals in the field of organ donation and transplantation who've made significant contributions to the field through leadership, innovation, and collaboration.

Spotlight

Celebrating the Women in STEMM at HHRI

We recently released the third video, our latest installment in the Research Heroes series, where we are featuring Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, Math, and Medicine (STEMM) at HHRI.

Watch the videos to see how various women in STEMM respond to the following questions:

"What is your career focus, and what excites you most about it?"
"What inspires you in your career?"
"How do you balance the demands of work with personal life?"

Thank you to all the women at HHRI for all you do!

Tune in Here

Publications & Media Highlights

Tyler Winkelman, MD, MSc, co-authored an article, "Individual-and Area-Level Incarceration Mortality," published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Network Open — The study found that people who are incarcerated face higher mortality rates, influenced by both their own incarceration and community incarceration rates. Read the article here.

How incarceration affects mortality — for people both inside and out — The medical and health online publication STAT reported on the JAMA Network Open article in their weekday morning newsletter, Morning Rounds. Read the story here .
The Prison Policy Initiative, a leading non-profit, non-partisan think tank focusing on research and advocacy around mass incarceration, featured findings from the JAMA Network Open study in their briefing "New Research: More evidence that county incarceration harms health, raising death rates." Read the briefing here.

Derek Lumbard, MD, interviewed on Minnesota's WCCO-TV News — As the number of gunshot victims seen at Hennepin Healthcare in 2025 has increased, Dr. Lumbard spoke about the Next Step violence prevention program. Watch the interview and read the story here.

Chair of Pediatrics at Hennepin Healthcare, Diana Cutts, MD, interviewed on Healthy Matters — Season 4, episode 19 of the Healthy Matters podcast, "Hunger, Health, and Hope: Tackling Food Insecurity," features Dr. Cutts discussing food insecurity and its ripple effects. Tune in here.

Tyler Winkelman, MD, MSc, interviewed on WCCO | CBS News Minnesota on Sunday, July 6 — Dr. Winkelman spoke with news anchor Esme Murphy on how the Medicaid cuts from the "big, beautiful bill" will impact Hennepin Healthcare. Watch it here.

Featured: Cardiac Biomarker Trials Laboratory (CBTL)

Since 1982, Dr. Fred Apple and his staff have carried out over 450 clinical studies, trials, and analytical evaluations. CBTL has served as a core lab for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Veterans Affairs (VA), multicenter, and pharmaceutical studies. These studies focus on biomarkers of myocardial injury, including myocardial infarction, reperfusion success, outcomes risk assessments, decentralized point of care testing trials, CABG, PCI, renal disease, Covid-19, heart failure, inflammation, and other non-ischemic mechanisms of injury. In addition, the laboratory serves as a center of excellence for forensic and clinical toxicology applied research studies.

Learn More

Reducing Substance Use Deaths Following Prison Release

A collaborative study published last July by HHRI and Yale researchers found that substance use was the main driver of high death rates for people who were recently released from jail or prison in Minnesota. In Hennepin Healthcare Foundation’s 2024 Report to the Community (page 23), Tyler Winkelman, MD, MSc, explains how these results are shaping treatment options at Hennepin Healthcare. “We’ve been expanding the amount of substance abuse treatment we offer in primary care and expanding the vocations that we offer both in primary care and substance abuse treatment,” Dr. Winkelman says in the report.

To support this expansion the Hennepin Healthcare Foundation is leading a campaign to build and launch a new Center for Addiction Medicine at Hennepin Healthcare. This $30 million investment will increase our capacity to conduct world-class addiction research like the project described above and further expand opportunities for patients to access substance use treatment after leaving jail or prison. Visit HHRI or the Foundation online to learn more about our research and ways you can support this program or the HHRI program of your choice.

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