DOM Annual Research Day

The day will begin with a special Medicine Grand Rounds with keynote speaker Mark Gladwin, MD, John Z. and Akiko K. Bowers Distinguished Professor and Dean, University of Maryland School of Medicine and vice president for Medical Affairs at the University of Maryland, Baltimore.

A leading heart, vascular, and lung physician-scientist, Dr. Gladwin maintains an active research group. He has published > 450 manuscripts (google scholar h-index of > 120). His scientific discoveries include the finding that the nitrite salt is a biological signaling molecule that regulates physiological and pathological hypoxic responses, blood pressure and flow, and dynamic mitochondrial electron transport. He also characterized the role of hemoglobin and myoglobin as signaling nitrite reductases that regulate NO production under hypoxia, and his 2003 publication on this work has been cited > 1,800 times and is in Nature Medicine’s Classic Collection.

His work on the nitrite anion has led to the development and licensing of intravenous, oral and inhaled nitrite as a human therapeutic, with completion of animal toxicology, GMP formulations and phase Ia and Ib clinical trials, with licensing of the drug. Phase II trials of inhaled nitrite are now underway for the treatment of pulmonary arterial hypertension, metabolic syndrome, and heart failure with preserved ejection fraction. In addition to studies of nitrite, he characterized a novel mechanism of disease, hemolysis-associated endothelial dysfunction. This work has described a state of resistance to NO in patients with sickle cell disease, malaria, transfusion of aged blood, and other hemolytic conditions, caused by scavenging of nitric oxide by hemoglobin that is released into plasma during hemolysis. These studies translated to clinical, and epidemiological description of a human disease syndrome, hemolysis-associated pulmonary hypertension.

Dr. Gladwin is currently PI of two R01 awards, a P01 award, and a clinical trials U award. He has served as PI on several multicenter phase II-III clinical trials in SCD patients, including the DeNOVO trial of NO therapy for acute pain crisis in patients with sickle cell disease, the Walk-PHASST trial of sildenafil for PH secondary to sickle cell disease, the EPIC trial of poloxomer 188 for vaso-occlusive painful crisis, the STERIO-SCD trial of the sGC stimulator riociguat, and the currently running SCD-CARRE, a clinical trial of exchange transfusion therapy. 

The Research Day agenda will be available by October 4.

Join the program of the DOM Research Day by submitting your scientific abstract. After review, all abstracts will be presented as posters and will be eligible for inclusion in the main program and for selection for awards.

Eligibility

Abstracts may be submitted by faculty, fellows, residents, graduate students, medical students, and undergraduate students within the Department of Medicine. The presenting author should be the first author on the abstract.

All research approaches are welcome. Preferably, research products will be of relatively recent vintage, though they need not be previously-unpresented.

Submission

Abstracts are limited to 300 words. There is no prescribed format, though good scientific practice suggests background and hypothesis, then methods and results, then a conclusion. Abstract text will be input into the online submission system, along with the names and affiliations of the scientific team and abstract meta-data.

Deadline

Submissions due by 5 p.m., Friday, October 18, 2024.