Newswise — The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Gillings School of Global Public Health has announced funding for four new Gillings Innovation Laboratories, on topics as diverse as water and the environment, drug safety, statistical genomics and 21st century public health teaching.
The projects bring to 14 the number of innovation laboratories that have been funded since the program was established in 2007.
The laboratories, funded through a gift to the public health school by Dennis and Joan Gillings, aim to help accelerate delivery of real-world solutions for some of the most challenging public health problems. Each innovation lab engages in one or more of the following areas: high-impact research, demonstration projects, and teaching practices which anticipate future public health challenges and accelerate sustainable solutions in North Carolina and around the world.
The four new innovation laboratories are:
"¢ Treating hog waste for energy recovery while meeting environmental goals
North Carolina is the second largest hog-producing state in the country. Collectively, swine farms produce more waste than current systems can manage and dispose of effectively. The result is a serious, measurable impact on water quality and human health. For example, it has been estimated that a 50 percent reduction in ammonia emissions from North Carolina hog farms would lead to $189 million per year in health benefits.
This innovation laboratory, led by Michael Aitken, Ph.D., professor and chair of the school's department of environmental sciences and engineering, will attempt to maximize the amount of organic matter available for conversion to methane as an energy source, substantially remove ammonia, and reduce the concentration of nitrogen remaining in treated waste applied to agricultural land.
The project will be conducted on a swine farm in Harnett County, N.C.
"¢ Developing new methods and open source software for genetic research
Recent advances in the study of human genetic variation and its relationship with disease represent some of the most important findings in the history of medicine and public health.
The goal of this innovation laboratory, led by Danyu Lin, Ph.D., Dennis Gillings Distinguished Professor of Biostatistics, and Fred Wright, Ph.D., professor of biostatistics, is to develop new statistical methods to study the associations between genetic variants and complex diseases.
An important aspect of their work will be the development of user-friendly open source software. The laboratory will help researchers better understand genetic risks and better interpret the biological complexity of genetic association. The project will collaborate with other public health and medical experts.
"¢ Determining benefit and harms drugs pose for older adults
Clinical trials that measure the efficacy of medicines before they are approved for wider use usually do not provide sufficient evidence on the benefit to harm ratio that will be found when the new medicine is used on a broader scale in the general population. In particular, clinical trials rarely expose older patients or those taking other medications, often for different conditions in the same person.
This innovation laboratory, led by Til Stürmer, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor and director of the UNC-GSK Center of Excellence in Pharmacoepidemiology and Public Health, will use innovative pharmacoepidemiological methodologies to examine national data available through Medicare Part D drug claims to identify linkages between drug use and the benefits and harms to older adults. Anticipated benefits include safer and more effective treatments.
"¢ Global seamless classroom
Technological advances have made it possible for students to share a class without sharing the room in which it is held. This innovation laboratory, led by William Zelman, Ph.D., professor of health policy and management, will design and pilot a prototype of a "global seamless classroom" that will integrate distance and classroom-based education to meet the needs of students in the 21st century.
Zelman and his team will seek to harness existing and emerging technologies and build on the experience and research in distance education that exists across the school and beyond. A major goal is to identify and begin integrating the approaches and opportunities presented by global, distance and classroom-based teaching.
The latest awards were among 31 proposals submitted last fall. Proposals were reviewed by more than 100 subject-matter experts from around the country. Final decisions were made by the school's senior leadership, including the dean, associate deans and department chairs. Funding is for up to two years.
For more information on the Gillings Innovation Labs, visit: www.sph.unc.edu/accelerate.
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