Updates from the Office of the SVPR
2024 Seed Grant Awardees
Congratulations to all our 2024 Seed Grant Program awardees!
Dr. William Chirico appointed as Associate VP for Research
Heartiest congratulations to Dr. William Chirico on his appointment as the Associate VP for Research, with purview over laboratory research. As Associate VP for Research, Dr. Chirico will be part of the SVPR research leadership team working with Downstate faculty, staff, and students on a wide range of topics and projects related to laboratory research (space, equipment, strategy, etc.).
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Dr. Chirico joined Downstate after completing his postdoctoral work in Günter Blobel's laboratory at The Rockefeller University, where he described the first physiological role of heat shock proteins (aka molecular chaperones) in a landmark Nature paper cited over 1500 times. His current research is focused on plasma membrane repair. Using yeast as a model system, he developed a membrane repair assay and used it in a genomic screen to identify about 150 repair genes. In collaboration with Dr. Patrick Geraghty, he translated those findings to human lung repair and demonstrated that the top repair candidates play similar roles in human lung epithelial cells -- work that is currently funded by the DoD.
He currently chairs Downstate’s Institutional Biosafety Committee, a role that is well aligned with his Associate VP for Research position. He will also continue to serve as Director of the Molecular and Cellular Biology Program in the School of Graduate Studies, until his term expires June 2025.
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Please join us in welcoming Dr. Chirico to the team. We are excited to have him on board and look forward to working with him in his new and important role!
DGNI Second Annual Symposium
On Thursday, June 20, 2024, the SUNY Downstate Global Neuroscience Initiative hosted its second annual conference with focus on “Advancing Health Equity in Acquired Brain Injury Across the Lifespan”, sponsored by the Research Symposia Program from our Office. The conference featured a range of distinguished speakers and engaging topics related to traumatic brain injury (TBI), stroke, dementia, and epilepsy.
A keynote address by Dr. Necrisha Roach, an accomplished vascular neurologist and educator, discussed the importance of “community champions” for creating and sustaining healthcare initiatives. A series of sections included presentations from various medical and public health professionals in the neuroscience field including Dr. Ernest Barthélemy on Molecular Epidemiology of TBI Outcome in Black Populations, Dr. Tsegazeab Laeke on TBI Research in Ethiopia, Dr. Gillian Gordon Perue on Stroke Thrombectomy, and Dr. Lidia Glodzik on Alzheimer’s Disease Biomarkers.In addition to the presentations, the conference included a dedicated session for networking for those attending in-person and virtually. Attendees were prompted to take advantage of dedicated time to build on existing and generate new research relationships.
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For a link to the full agenda and list of speakers, please click here.
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Following this session was a dynamic and insightful group discussion moderated by Downstate faculty members including Drs. Marcus Lambert, Deborah Gustafson, Steven Levine, and Jack DeHovitz. Moderators provided insight based on their research and grant writing experience to advise on ways to best approach the research paradigm. These sessions facilitated rich exchanges of ideas and collaborative problem-solving related to building sustainable research partnerships and increasing research capacity in global neuroscience.
If you would like more information regarding this initiative, please feel free to reach out to the SUNY DGNI team via email ( sunydgni@downstate.edu ), via Linkedin, or on X (formerly Twitter).
Initiatives from our office
We would like to remind the Downstate community of some of the initiatives we offer, as we continue to work to provide an environment to facilitate researchers' abilities to make discoveries.
Pivot - a tool for faculty and students to provide curated access to funding opportunities, find collaborators, and more. Please take a few minutes to adopt your Downstate Pivot profile. Find information on creating a profile and using Pivot on our website. Pivot’s value increases for all of us as its utilization grows!
Grant Writing Support - two ways to assist with grant writing support. Faculty can request external consultants or request funds to compensate a mentor for their time and effort towards grant-writing help.
Research Support Services- Biostatistics support and scientific computing resource.