NIMHD Adjunct Investigator Program

National Institute On Minority Health And Health Disparities

Investigators

Linked publications, trials & patents

Abstract

In FY22, we continued to fund 8 Adjunct Investigators to conduct health disparities research and mentor racially-ethnically diverse trainees in their labs. Three investigators are Senior Investigators who have been champions in diversity and inclusion. Of the other 5, one is an Assistant Clinical Investigator, and the others are Tenure-Track Investigators (TTIs). This strategy of funding seasoned health disparities investigators and early career investigators has been exceptionally helpful in creating opportunities and supportive environments for trainees. Stefan Ambs, NCI In FY22, Dr. Ambs and his trainee completed a study of the influence of diabetes on breast cancer biology that aimed to identify shared phenotypes and molecular signatures by investigating the metabolome, transcriptome, and tumor mutational burden. Diabetes did not enhance cell proliferation but induced mesenchymal and stem cell-like phenotypes linked to increased mobility and odds of metastasis. It also promoted oxyradical formation and both transcriptome and mutational signatures of DNA repair deficiency. Moreover, food- and microbiome-derived metabolites tended to accumulate in breast tumors in presence of diabetes, potentially affecting tumor biology. Breast cancer cells cultured under hyperglycemia acquired increased DNA damage and sensitivity to DNA repair inhibitors. Diabetes-associated breast tumors may show an increased drug response to DNA damage repair inhibitors that are cancer therapeutics and could help reduce racial disparities in breast cancer mortality. Fasil Tekola-Ayele, NICHD Dr. Tekola-Ayeles research focuses on two themes at the maternal-placental-fetal interface genetics of fetal growth and placental epigenome/transcriptome. His study revealed that gene-environment interactions account for the majority of variation in placental DNA methylation. Methylation at 70% of variable methylated regions (VMRs), which are regions in the epigenome with high inter-individual methylation variability, was best explained by Gene Environment, followed by genotype only (17.7%), and Gene + Environment (12.3%). Prenatal environment alone best explained only 0.03% of VMRs. They observed that 95.4% of G E models and 93.9% of G + E models included maternal age, parity, delivery mode, maternal depression or gestational weight gain. Michele Evans, NIA Using the Healthy Aging in Neighborhoods of Diversity across the Life Span Study (HANDLS-PI Dr. Evans) she published three papers with her post-doctoral fellow related to biologic pathways underlying frailty development in middle-aged adults, the roles of race and social determinants of health in and an accelerated aging phenotypte, and the relationship of APOE gene region methylation with cognitive performance. Her work has found novel and significant sex-specific transcriptional changes that occur in middle-aged frailty, enhancing knowledge on frailty progression and potential therapeutic targets to prevent frailty and reduce disparities. Pravitt Gourh, NIAMS Dr. Gourh has the largest cohort (n=1300) of African American scleroderma patients. The goal is to study scleroderma (systemic sclerosis, SSc) in the African American (AA) population, (i) to identify genes that increase SSc susceptibility, and (ii) to understand the basic mechanisms by which these genes cause SSc. Genome wide association study and exome sequencing have led to identification of HLA and non-HLA genes increasing SSc susceptibility in the AA population. He is expanding his work in this area to include social determinants of health (SDoH) because their interactions with genetic factors, including genetic admixture, could help explain the higher prevalence and severity of scleroderma in African American patients. Chandra Jackson, NIEHS Dr. Jacksons research group is investigating how physical and social environments impact racial-ethnic and socioeconomic disparities in cardiometabolic health, with a particular interest in the influence of sleep health. She published work that indicates that among African American adults, there is a longitudinal association between increasing (vs. stable) discrimination and decreased sleep quality. In cross-sectional analyses, higher discrimination was associated with shorter sleep duration, independent of stress. In a study of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and nighttime blood pressure among African Americans, she found that OSA and nocturnal hypoxemia were associated with high nighttime blood pressure, which could help explain racial disparities in hypertension. With her post-doctoral fellow (funded by NIMHD DIR), she published an article addressing subclinical racial-ethnic disparities in sleep-related cardiac function that expands scientific approaches by including modifiable physical and social environments over the life-course to identify points of intervention for primordial prevention. Tiffany Powell Wiley, NHLBI The Powell-Wiley laboratory has continued to explore racial-ethnic disparities in cardiovascular risk factors and health among African American women at high risk. She is leading a collaborative effort to establish a community-based cardiovascular screening clinic in a primarily African American neighborhood in Washington, D.C. to enroll more African Americans in clinical research to address disparities. She published an extremely useful framework demonstrating the links (mechanisms) between social determinants of health (SDoH), which encompass the economic, social, environmental, and psychosocial factors that influence health, and the significant role they play in the development of cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors as well as CVD morbidity and mortality. Anne E. Sumner, MD, NIDDK Dr. Sumners work has focused on (a) improving the detection and prevention of diabetes and its complications in people of African descent; (b) identifying the social determinants of diabetes and heart disease and (c) training African physicians as well as under-represented minorities to be clinical investigators. Dr. Sumner and her trainees have been working to analyze data from Dr. Sumners Diabetes and Heart Disease in Blacks observational cohort study. As of August 2022, she had enrolled 934 Blacks in the cohort, specifically 229 African American and 605 African immigrant adults. In addition, she published a recent study that assessed 1,274 South Africans living in Cape Town to examine it combining HbA1c with glycated albumin (GA) could improve detection of dysglycaemia. They demonstrated for the first time in an African population the existence of both the positive correlation between body mass index (BMI) and HbA1c and the negative correlation between BMI and GA. Hence, combining these two non-fasting markers of glycemia improves detection of dysglycaemia across BMI categories. Kyle Messier, NIEHS Dr. Kyle Messiers lab has two overarching themes: (1) geospatial exposure, disparity, and risk mapping; and (2) Spatiotemporal mapping connections to toxicology. He published an analysis that systematically compared urban variation at several scales, from hyperlocal (<100 m) to regional (>10 km), and assessed consequences for outdoor air pollution experienced by residents of different races and ethnicities, by creating a set of uniquely extensive and high-resolution observations of spatially variable pollutants: NO, NO2, black carbon (BC), and ultrafine particles (UFP). Through full coverage monitoring in four San Francisco Bay Area counties, they found that median concentrations of UFP, NO, and NO2 are, for Hispanic and Black populations, 8 to 30% higher than the population average. Their results illustrate how detailed and extensive fine-scale pollution observations can add new insights about disparities in air pollution exposures at the population scale.