March 18, 2024
Whether you’re local or global, student or alumni, the Abstract’s weekly news digest will help you stay in the loop with our amazing Gillings School community.
Effectiveness of updated vaccines and antiviral drugs examined in new study
Department of Biostatistics Professor Danyu Lin, PhD, is the lead author on a study examining the effectiveness of the updated COVID-19 vaccines and antiviral drugs. It found that these interventions reduced the risk of serious consequences from infection with currently circulating omicron subvariants. Read more about this study here.
Department of Defense funds new AI focused grant
Department of Biostatistics Associate Professor Naim Rashid has received funding from the United States Department of Defense. The grant aims to better match pancreatic cancer patients with clinical trials according to their preferences.
Patterns of all-cause mortality among Hispanic/Latino adults from diverse background groups were altered during the COVID-19 pandemic
Jianwen Cai, PhD, Cary C. Boshamer Distinguished Professor in the Department of Biostatistics at the Gillings School, and colleagues recently published a study in Annals of Internal Medicine titled “Cumulative All-Cause Mortality in Diverse Hispanic/Latino Adults.”
Read more about this study.In this paper, more than 15,000 adults of Central American, Cuban, Dominican, Mexican, Puerto Rican and South American backgrounds were included from the Hispanic Community Health Study / Study of Latinos (HCHS/SOL) and researchers found that the patterns of all-cause mortality among these groups were altered during the COVID-19 pandemic. They also found that people with Central American and Mexican backgrounds appeared to be more affected than any other group.
“The landmark multi-center HCHS/SOL study, is the largest, comprehensive, longitudinal community-based cohort study to date of diverse Hispanic/Latino persons in the US,” says Dr. Cai. “Our study is also the first comprehensive report on mortality risk across Hispanic/Latino background groups from HCHS/SOL, and it demonstrates sizeable variations in mortality risks across groups.”
The Collaborative Studies Coordinating Center, part of the Department of Biostatistics at the Gillings School, serves as the study’s coordinating center. The collaboration of Gillings’ faculty, staff and students from multiple departments on the project has been ongoing since 2007. Additional UNC-CH co-authors on the paper include Gerardo Heiss, PhD, W.R. Kenan, JR. Distinguished Professor, Wayne Rosamond, PhD, Marston Youngblood, MA, and former graduate student Pedro Baldoni, PhD 2020.
New collaborative paper published with NCA&T on Aerosols from Burning of African Biomass
A new study co-authored by post doctoral students Vaios Moschos and Cade Christenen was published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology. The paper highlights the joint collaborative work led by Jason Surratt, PhD, and Barbara Turpin, PhD, professors at the Gillings School, and Solomon Bililign, PhD, professor at North Carolina A&T State University and funded by the United States National Science Foundation. The study elaborates on the harmful effects of burning of biomass in the growing population of the continent of Africa, which has previously been understudied in regards to wildfires and the burning of biomass and its effects and public health and the climate. Read the full study online.
New research identifies gene that causes colonic diverticulosis
Jungkyun Seo
Jungkyun Seo, postdoctoral fellow in epidemiology, led a newly published study in collaboration with Assistant Professor Kristin Young, PhD and Associate Dean for research, Kari North, PhD, titled “Genetic and transcriptomic landscape of colonic diverticulosis.”
The research also included collaborative efforts from various UNC-Chapel Hill schools and departments; The Department of Genetics, the Center for Gastrointestinal Biology and Disease, the Department of Biology and Integrative Program for Biological and Genome Sciences and the Gastroenterology and Hepatology at the UNC-Chapel Hill Medical School.
The study looked at how certain genes affect colonic diverticulosis, a condition where small bulging pouches develop in the digestive tract. They found that changes in gene behavior can effect the body’s way of remodeling tissue which can cause the small pouches to form in the colon. They also identified a gene called ENTPD7 which determined to be directly related to colonic diverticulosis. They also discovered that people with more genetic factors tend to have more diverticula.
