NIH grant funding

New study finds associations between use of skin care products and exposure to potential developmental toxicants

mthomp7 — Wed, 04 Sep 2024 13:15:40 +0000

New study finds associations between use of skin care products and exposure to potential developmental toxicants mthomp7 Wed, 09/04/2024 - 09:15

In This Story

Michael S. Bloom, PhD, MS, FACE

Use of skin care products is associated with exposure to phthalates and phthalate-replacement chemicals in young children, according to the new and first-of-its-kind study at ��AV's College of Public Health.

A new study led by primary investigator Michael S. Bloom, professor in the Department of Global and Community Health at George Mason’s College of Public Health, has found that use of skin care products including lotions, hair oils, hair conditioners, ointments, and sunscreen is associated with higher levels of phthalates in children’s urine. The associations depend in part upon the child’s racial and ethnic identity and their sex as assigned at birth. The study was co-authored by two George Mason Master of Public Health alumni, Juliana Clark and Kelly Garcia.

A new study led by primary investigator Michael S. Bloom has found that use of skin care products including lotions, hair oils, hair conditioners, ointments, and sunscreen is associated with higher levels of phthalates in children’s urine. Photo by Michelle Thompson/College of Public Health

“This is the first study to suggest that different skin care products used by young children may differentially increase exposure to endocrine-disrupting phthalates and phthalate replacements in young children,” said Bloom.

Phthalates and phthalate-replacement compounds are endocrine-disrupting chemicals, meaning they may interfere with the body’s hormones. Exposure to these chemicals in early childhood has been associated with neurodevelopmental, reproductive, and metabolic disease concerns in previous studies. Some of these chemicals are often used as carriers for the active ingredients in skin care products; others may be used in plastic packaging.

The study collected medical data from 630 children between the ages of 4 and 8 from 10 different sites across the United States, including a clinical examination and a urinalysis. The child’s parent or guardian was also asked to complete a survey within 24 hours prior to the child’s examination, which included questions regarding the child’s sociodemographic information (race/ethnic identity, sex assigned at birth, etc.). It also asked parents to list all the skin care products, including lotions, soaps, shampoos, oils, and cosmetics, that were applied to the child’s skin in the 24 hours prior to their examination, with as much specificity as possible regarding the product type and brand or generic name.

“We found associations between recent use of different skin care products and higher concentrations of phthalate and phthalate-replacement compounds,” said Bloom. “There were different relationships between the use of skin care products and the endocrine-disrupting chemicals in children depending on their racial and ethnic identities and their sex assigned at birth. We also found that distinct patterns of using multiple skin care products were predictive of higher concentrations of phthalates and phthalate replacements.”

While Bloom and his team say that further studies are necessary to confirm these findings, the results suggest that children in different racial and ethnic groups may experience different levels of risk for exposure to phthalates. In particular, they found the highest levels of phthalates and phthalate replacements in the urine of non-Hispanic Black participants. The differences may correlate to brand availability and preferences, methods and timing of product application, and/or the frequency of use by children with different racial and ethnic identities.

“The results can inform policies to address the use of endocrine-disrupting chemicals in skin care products that may be used on children and to help advise parents’ decisions about using products to limit their children’s exposure to potential developmental toxicants,” said Bloom.

“Impact of skin care products on phthalates and phthalate replacements in children: the ECHO-FGS” was published online in Environmental Health Perspectives in September 2024. This research was funded by the U.S. National Institute of Health (NIH) Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) study.

Additional authors include: Juliana Clark, ��AV; John L. Pearce, Medical University of South Carolina; Pamela L. Ferguson, Medical University of South Carolina; Roger B. Newman, Medical University of South Carolina; James R. Roberts, Medical University of South Carolina; William A. Grobman, The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center; Anthony C. Sciscione, Christiana Care Health System; Daniel W. Skupski, New York Presbyterian Queens Hospital; Kelly E. Garcia, ��AV; John E. Vena, Medical University of South Carolina; Kelly J. Hunt, Medical University of South Carolina; the ECHO-FGS study group.

Topics

Master of Public Health

Environmental Chemicals

Research

College of Public Health receives NIH grant to pilot AI chatbot for African Americans with depression

Mary Cunningham — Mon, 10 Jun 2024 17:03:05 +0000

College of Public Health receives NIH grant to pilot AI chatbot for African Americans with depression Mary Cunningham Mon, 06/10/2024 - 13:03

In This Story

Farrokh Alemi, PhD

Janusz Wojtusiak, PhD

Kevin Lybarger

As a leader in innovative health solutions, ��AV’s College of Public Health received a National Institutes of Health (NIH) AIM-AHEAD program grant to pilot an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot for Black and African Americans with depression. Professor Farrokh Alemi will enhance his first-of-its-kind, evidence-based artificial intelligence tool to address the medication needs of African Americans with depression.

Professor of Health Informatics Farrokh Alemi

The existing AI tool recommends antidepressants for 16,775 general-population patient subgroups, each representing a unique combination of medical history. For each of these subgroups, the current project will analyze the effectiveness and appropriateness of the recommendations for African Americans, using the NIH All of Us database and existing published literature.

To the researchers' knowledge, this is the first research focused on developing and evaluating an antidepressant recommendation system for Black and African American people.

“Antidepressant medications are a first-line treatment for depression; however, a majority of depressed patients do not experience improvement with their first antidepressant. Additionally, minority populations, including Black and African Americans, are not well represented in antidepressant studies, contributing to reduced antidepressant effectiveness in these populations,” said Alemi. “There is a significant need to synthesize available evidence regarding antidepressant effectiveness and provide personalized treatment recommendations, and this project addresses a major gap in the management of Black and African Americans with depression.”

Researchers will develop a Knowledge-enhanced Antidepressant Recommendation Dialogue System (KARDS), which will engage users in a back-and-forth conversation to acquire the patient information needed to identify the appropriate antidepressant medication. The AI will provide the patient with a list of recommended medications, list of the relevant studies, and an explanation for the medication decisions. The system will automatically send the patient’s clinician a brief point-of-care recommendation and explanation, with an option to examine a complete record of the conversation and the supporting evidence.

“Chatbots—or patient-facing dialogue systems like the one we will create—hold transformative potential for the health care sector and are increasingly prominent in psychiatric applications, predominantly through therapy-bot implementations,” said Alemi. “Our chatbot will help improve the detailed, time-consuming, medical history intake process, and provide point-of-care summary and prescription recommendations to the patients’ clinicians. The chatbot will make patients more comfortable because the natural language modality provides an intuitive, empathetic, stigma-free interface.”

Once the AI chatbot is developed, the team will test the dialogue system with Black and African American patients to evaluate system functionality and user preferences. Additionally, the project will train a Black or African American doctoral or master’s student in AI, expanding the available workforce and building the community’s capacity to address AI.

Alemi will lead the research team, which includes Janusz Wojtusiak, a George Mason professor of Health Informatics and the director of the Machine Learning and Inference Laboratory, and Kevin Lybarger, a George Mason assistant professor in the Department of Information Sciences and Technology in the College of Engineering and Computing. All three members have collaborated previously to diagnose COVID at home from presenting symptoms.

The $70,906 grant is part of the NIH’s AIM-AHEAD (Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning Consortium to Advance Health Equity and Researcher Diversity) program, which aims “to establish mutually beneficial and coordinated partnerships to increase the participation and representation of researchers and communities currently underrepresented in the development of AI/machine learning models and enhance the capabilities of this emerging technology, beginning with electronic health record data.”

Innovate for Good is an ongoing series that examines how George Mason faculty in the College of Public Health are harnessing technology to improve health outcomes.

If you have stories to share as part of the Innovate for Good series, email Mary Cunningham at mcunni7@gmu.edu.

Topics

Artifical Intelligence

Tech Talent Investment Program (TTIP)

Professor receives nearly $500,000 National Institutes of Health grant to study children born with congenital eye disease

Mary Cunningham — Mon, 27 Mar 2023 17:34:21 +0000

Professor receives nearly $500,000 National Institutes of Health grant to study children born with congenital eye disease Mary Cunningham Mon, 03/27/2023 - 13:34

In This Story

Carolyn Drews-Botsch, PhD, MPH

Chair of the Department of Global and Community Health Carolyn Drews-Botsch continues her study of unilateral congenital cataracts by studying the risks and benefits of prolonged patching in preschool-aged children.

Children with unilateral congenital cataracts (UCC) are born with cloudy or opaque vision in one eye that, if left untreated, can result in blindness. The condition is treated, as it is in adults, by removing the lens. Glasses, contacts, or implanting an artificial lens are needed to replace the focusing power of the natural lens. Occlusion therapy, also known as patching, is when the child wears a patch covering one eye and it is needed to strengthen the eye after treatment. However, even with the best treatment, about half of these children will remain legally blind in the treated eye. Further, it can be difficult for parents to get children to wear the patch consistently for the required amount of time.

With a $457,00 (directs and indirects) National Institutes of Health R21 grant, Carolyn Drews-Botsch, professor and chair of the Department of Global and Community Health, is studying the effects and benefits of patching in preschool aged children.

“The ultimate goal is to advise parents and health care providers about how to improve visual acuity and how long to continue patching if a child is born with a unilateral congenital cataract,” said Drews-Botsch. “Even with patching, a high proportion of children do not develop usable vision in the treated eye. Therefore, the usefulness of extended patching in eyes destined to have poor vision is unclear, and the costs of therapy need to be weighed against possible benefits.”

Currently, children treated for UCC are advised to patch the unaffected eye for 50% of waking hours throughout the first 5-6 years of life and often into the elementary school years. Adherence to this guideline can be difficult for parents and children, and there are few evidence-based tools to help families. Additionally, vision improvement is not a guarantee with patching, so it could ultimately negatively affect the child. Even with early surgery and consistent patching, relatively few children develop adequate vision by the time they enter school.

The project, “Secondary Analyses of data from the Infant Aphakia Treatment Study: Patching in Children with Unilateral Congenital Cataracts and Poor Visual Acuity,” leverages unique secondary data collected in the Infant Aphakia Treatment Study (IATS). Researchers will provide guidance on how to establish patching habits that may improve outcomes, and conduct cost and benefits analysis of patching in the latter part of preschool. Researchers will determine whether it is possible to accurately identify children who will ultimately have little usable vision in their affected eye using information collected in the first four years of life and if prolonged patching in children who ultimately will not see well impacts their quality of life.

The IATS is a randomized controlled trial designed to compare two treatments for UCC: leaving children without a lens in their eye (aphakic) so that they need to wear glasses or a contact lens versus implanting an artificial lens (pseudophakic) at the time of cataract surgery. The primary study is one of the largest currently available cohorts of children treated for UCC and has provided important evidence about outcomes in these children prior to school entry.

Drews-Botsch and fellow researchers Scott Lambert from Stanford University, Marianne Celano and George Cotsonis from Emory University, and Genie Hartmann from Akron Children’s Hospital have worked with the IATS for over 15 years. Assistant Professor in the Department of Global and Community Health Jaffer Zaidi is new to the team.

Topics

Public Health

GCH Faculty

public health research

Children's Health

NIH grant funding

Research

Striving for a better understanding of late autism diagnosis

Shayla Brown — Fri, 21 Oct 2022 20:38:14 +0000

Striving for a better understanding of late autism diagnosis Shayla Brown Fri, 10/21/2022 - 16:38

��AV researcher Allison Jack recently received an Autism Center of Excellence (ACE) Network award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for her research efforts aimed at understanding why some autistic individuals receive very late diagnoses, or none at all.

Allison Jack. Photo by Sierra Guard/Creative Services

NIH’s ACE Program funds large research projects to understand and develop interventions for autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This project is a collaboration between multiple universities, hospitals, and organizations.

“When we have people getting these late diagnoses that limit their ability to access a lot of supportive services,” said Jack, an assistant professor in Mason’s Psychology Department, “we were also noticing in our data that these individuals who had these late diagnoses were reporting much poorer quality of life with greater anxiety and depression.”

Jack has worked on the longitudinal project since its inception, starting as a postdoctoral fellow studying with Yale’s Kevin Pelphrey. Pelphrey, Jack and Lauren Kenworthy, director at Children’s National’s Center for Autism Spectrum Disorders, are the three MPIs on the project.

During the early phases of the project, their team looked at children between the ages 8-17. “We tried to describe autistic girls, their brains, their genetics, and their behavior. Are they different from autistic boys in any way? Are they different from neurotypical kids?”

The following phase of the project was disrupted by COVID. “It ended up being a lot of online follow-ups with these kids who had come in the first five years of the project,” said Jack. “They were getting older, and we were following them into adolescence and the transition into adulthood to see how these youth were doing over time.”

Allison Jack. Photo by Sierra Guard/Creative Services

A tangible product their team hopes to have at the end of their research will allow patients to be diagnosed who are routinely missed by current methods.

“Ultimately, the tool will be a concise series of questions that an individual and/or caregiver can answer via a smartphone, web page, or via pencil and paper,” said Pelphrey, who is part of the Child Study Center at the Yale School of Medicine. “This tool will provide a diagnostic access point for adolescents and adults at risk for late diagnosis.”

“Dr. Jack started with us and was instrumental in making this project successful,” said Pelphrey. “She’s been the primary author on several of the most important and impactful papers to come out of this work. It’s been an honor to watch her professional development.”

The award is special, said Jack, due to its highly competitive and high-profile nature.

This is the project’s third round of funding since 2012. "The sites that are working on east centers or east networks tend to get thought of as premiere locations for autism research nationwide, so this is a pretty big deal in the autism world!” said Jack.

Topics

College of Humanities and Social Sciences

Research

Psychology Department

autism spectrum disorder

Institute for Biohealth Innovation

NIH grant funding

Bioengineering student completes competitive NIH internship program

Rena Malai — Wed, 31 Aug 2022 14:22:19 +0000

Bioengineering student completes competitive NIH internship program Rena Malai Wed, 08/31/2022 - 10:22

Bioengineering student John Mutersbaugh has always been interested in the human brain.

“I am so fascinated by the brain and all its capabilities,” he says. “How it works is incredibly complicated. Our current understanding of the brain is very limited. We barely understand how it functions on many different levels.”

This natural curiosity drew him to apply for – and win – the National Institute of Health (NIH) Biomedical Engineering Summer Internship Program (BESIP), a competitive internship offered to rising senior bioengineering students. The program allows students to get hands-on experience in cutting-edge biomedical research projects.

“BESIP is just a really great experience,” says Mutersbaugh. “I was hired to work under a doctor and neuroscientist in the National Institutes of Health to do research along with my mentors Dr. Kareem Zaghloul and Dr. Uma Mohan. I had the opportunity to learn from post grad students and doctors working there.”

During Mutersbaugh’s 10-week internship, he worked on analyzing and researching data collected from drug-resistant epilepsy patients. These patients receive deep brain stimulation through implanted electrodes, which help to prevent seizures.

Muterbaugh says the stimulation helps to keep the brain in sync and this type of work suited his interests perfectly.

“Deciphering the brain and memory encoding signals is a big interest of mine,” he says. “I am very drawn to this field of neuroscience.”

He feels that along with this interest, his previous experience as a George Mason Office of Scholarship, Creative Activities, and Research (OSCAR) intern, a solid essay, and having his genuine enthusiasm for the opportunities offered through BESIP shine through helped him land the role.

“I think the formatting of my essay helped to really detail my previous experience and interest. I made sure to write about my interest in the research being done and details about why I’d be interested in working with the BESIP neuroscientists,” he says.

The fact the internship is paid is another motivator, he says, and it will open up doors whether he chooses to pursue a PHD or continue a research career.

His best advice for those wanting to apply to BESIP next year is to try to get some OSCAR experience first, and leverage it to gain the research experience desired for BESIP. He also recommends that theyseek out a professor doing medical related work on campus and ask them to be a mentor.

“By working with a professor, this can set you up with a solid letter of recommendation on your research skills, as well as experience which matters in the BESIP application process,” he says.

BESIP is for undergraduate biomedical engineering students who have completed their junior year of college. Applications for the 2023 summer BESIP program should re-open around the middle of November 2022 for the 2023 summer.