Cores

This core is responsible for the management and coordination of the entire project.  The Project will have weekly teleconferences for the Steering Committee and all U54 Personnel, annual meetings with the External Advisory Committee, and ongoing interactions with the NIH CounterACT Program.

This core focuses on the educational component of the U54 mission.

• The interdisciplinary training of a new generation of countermeasure scientists.
• Focus on fostering interactions between countermeasure scientists and a range of emerging biologic disciplines.
• A Program website to disseminate innovations in countermeasure discovery for investigators in other chemical threat areas, and in broader biomedical research community.

Our laboratory focuses on the nexus of cardiac and metabolic diseases. To expand the novelty and clinical impact of our studies, we have developed and incorporated emerging mass-spectrometry technologies towards the discovery of new biomarkers and pathways. We make observations in humans and then turn to cell and animal based systems to test for causal relationships. Because metabolites are downstream of genetic variation and transcriptional changes, they serve as “proximal reporters” of physiology and may be highly relevant biomarkers for human diseases. Our research incorporates basic molecular and cell biology, genetics, chemistry, mass spectrometry and bioinformatics, all with a foundation in clinical medicine.  Over the past five years, our group has expanded the focus of our studies to the pathophysiology associated with cyanide toxicity.   In collaboration with other investigators in this proposal, we have leveraged our comprehensive metabolomics platform to support multiple aspects in the development of novel cyanide countermeasures.