Yahoo News: Five Black UC faculty members receive National Institutes of Health grants

Five African-American researchers and healthcare professionals on UC’s medical campus have received sizable grants from the National Institutes of Health during the past 18 months. The faculty members were interviewed by WCPO to help showcase innovation and the diverse voices and perspectives they bring as the healthcare community attempts to ease health disparities in communities of color in Cincinnati and beyond.

Among the faculty interviewed were the following:

LaTrice Montgomery, PhD, assistant professor in Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, who received a five-year NIH grant of $726,270 to study “Young Adult African-American Blunt Smokers.” 

Holly Jones, PhD, assistant professor in the UC College of Nursing, received a three-year NIH grant of $482,570 to study “Stress-reduction Wellness Program for Midlife Black Women (B-Swell).” 

Laura Ngwenya, MD, PhD, associate professor of neurosurgery in the UC College of Medicine, and UC Health physician, received a five-year NIH grant of $1 million to study “Spreading depolarizations and brain dysfunction following traumatic brain injury.”

Senu Apewokin, MD, assistant professor of infectious diseases in the UC College of Medicine and UC Health physician, received a five-year NIH grant of $1.1 million to study “Harnessing Induced Human Intestinal Organoids & Metagenomics to Unravel Host Immune-microbiota interactions during cancer chemotherapy-associated.”

Donald Lynch, MD, assistant professor of cardiovascular health and diseases in the UC College of Medicine and UC Health cardiologist, received a five-year NIH grant of $898,000 to study “Platelets and Hemostatic Factors as Facilitators of the Inflammatory Response Following Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement.” 

Listen to the WCPO interview also picked up by Yahoo News.