The Division has an emerging research arm with established investigators and promising new researchers.  Research faculty members are well published and present their work and conduct workshops at a number of national and regional meetings each year.  Research, conducted at highest scientific standards, targets areas such health care disparities, hypertension, diabetes mellitus, access to care of underserved populations, aging and geriatric care, professional education, and medical informatics. Clinical and Health Services research is conducted in collaboration with Department of Biometry and Biostatistics, Center for Health Services Research, and the Ralph H. Johnson VA Medical Center.

Clinical Research
The Division of General Internal Medicine and Geriatrics Clinical Research is housed in the Center for Health Disparities Research.  Division members include Leonard Egede, MD, MS, John Chen, PhD and William Moran, MD, MS.  The General Internal Medicine and Geriatrics fellows enrolled in the Academic Generalist Fellowship is also housed in the Center for Health Disparities Research.

More information on Clinical Research

Basic Research
Within the Division of General Internal Medicine, the Geriatrics section houses a program focused on research in aging biology.  This program is directed by Dr. Lina M. Obeid, Boyle Professor of Medicine, a trained geriatrician as well as a physician scientist.  Other faculty within this program are Drs. Cungui Mao and Sergei Novgorodov.

The main focus of this program is to understand mechanisms of cell regulation and signal transduction in aging cancer and inflammatory processes by bioactive lipid mediators.

Several ongoing and funded projects are underway.  These include:

1)   Sphingosine Phosphate role in Inflammation (Principal Investigator, Lina Obeid and Co-Investigator, Cungui Mao) NIH/NIGMS

This project focuses on identifying a role for the bioactive lipid Sphingosine-1-Phosphate as a regulator of inflammatory processes. Specifically we have implicated this lipid in activating the COX-2/ PGE2 inflammatory pathway and are studying the mechanisms involved in this regulation.  Disease models being used in this study include rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease and septic shock.

2)   Mitochondrial Ceramide in Chemotherapy-induced Apoptosis (Principal Investigator, Lina Obeid and Co-Investigator, Sergei Novgorodov) NIH/NIA

This project focuses on understanding the role of ceramide in regulating mitochondrial processes of cell death. These studies focus on cancer and on neurodegenerative diseases by ischemia reperfusion.

3)   Regulation of Human Alkaline Ceramidases and Role in Cancer and Aging Biology (Principal Investigator, Lina Obeid) Veteran's Administration Merit Award

This project focuses on understanding the role of a family of enzymes namely the alkaline ceramidases in the regulation of cancer and aging biology.  Ceramide has been shown to be elevated in cellular senescence and in programmed cell death. Understanding how its cellular levels are regulated will have important implications to disease of aging and cancer.

4)   COBRE in Lipidomics and Pathobiology ((Principal Investigator, Lina Obeid and Principal Investigator of Project 5, Cungui Mao) NIH

This program focuses on mentoring several junior investigators to establish independent research programs on the role of bioactive lipids in pathobiology including projects focused on cancer,  neurodegeneration  and angiogenesis.

5) Alkaline Ceramidase and Sphingolipid Signaling (Principal Investigator, Cungui Mao) NIH/NCI 

This project is focused on understanding the role of alkaline phytoceramidase in regulation of ceramide levels in cells and developing mouse knock outs of the enzyme to understand its role in lipid metabolism and disease.