Nutrition’s Campbell awarded NIH Challenge Grant to bring HOPE to eastern North Carolina

Dr. Marci Campbell

Marci Campbell, PhD, professor of nutrition at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, has been awarded a two-year, $954,000 National Institutes of Health Challenge Grant to provide support to low-income women in rural eastern North Carolina to lose weight, become financially literate, and move out of poverty.

The grant, based at the UNC Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention, where Campbell is a research fellow, will support the HOPE (Health, Opportunity, Partnerships and Empowerment) Account project. Participants in the project will open savings accounts known as individual development accounts (IDAs) and will receive matching funds to apply toward furthering their education, buying a home or creating a business.

The HOPE Account project is related to the Center’s recent core project, HOPE Works, begun in 1990. HOPE Works seeks to help women overcome social disadvantages, such as low income, unemployment or lack of education so that they can focus on improving their health. During this project, participants developed microenterprise skills and started a small successful business, Threads of HOPE. Despite these successes, economic barriers related to acquiring education, property and the collateral necessary to get a small business loan have continued to be a challenge.

The NIH announced the new Challenge Grants initiative earlier this year as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). The highly competitive federal grant program, which aims to tackle high impact scientific and health challenges, received more than 20,000 applications from across the U.S.

Under the program, the NIH has defined a number of challenge areas – focused on specific knowledge gaps, scientific opportunities, new technologies, data generation and research methods – where an influx of funds could quickly lead to results.

Officials say the research should have a high impact in public health and biomedical or behavioral science.

Thirteen UNC research projects received Challenge Grants, totaling about $11.8 million over two years. Others include:

• Researchers will use a $1 million grant to evaluate the influence of gene variations and epigenetic expression on risky behaviors such as binge drinking, smoking, illegal drug use and delinquency. The project will use data, including saliva DNA samples, from the UNC-based National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. Researchers will also investigate methods for handling thousands of variables, both genetic and environmental, in similar studies. The principal investigator is Guang Guo, PhD, sociology professor, UNC College of Arts and Sciences and fellow of the Carolina Population Center and the Carolina Center for Genome Sciences.
• The UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy will receive $873,000 to study proteins involved in regulating the genetic material chromatin, and exploring how chromatin’s control of gene expression and gene silencing is relevant in normal and disease biology. When the proteins that control chromatin are deranged, cancer can develop. Principal investigator: Stephen Frye, PhD, professor of medicinal chemistry and natural products, director of the center for integrative chemical biology and drug discovery, and a member of the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Tony Waldrop, PhD, vice chancellor for research and economic development, said the projects help illustrate the high quality of research being conducted by Carolina scientists, who are leaders in their disciplines.

“This funding should directly benefit our state’s economy and taxpayers by creating jobs and innovations that will make a difference in people’s lives,” Waldrop said.

Including the NIH Challenge Grants, UNC researchers have been awarded ARRA grants or awards worth more than $127.4 million since March.

More information about the HOPE Account project is available online.

UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health contact: Ramona DuBose, director of communications, (919) 966-7467 or ramona_dubose@unc.edu.