Outside of full Clinical Trials, there are many other research projects being conducted at the St. Louis VA that are administered by the Foundation. This includes data only studies, educational studies, and Bench Science / Animal Studies.
Data Studies:
Title: Improving Outcomes in Prostate Cancer Based on Comorbidities: Developing Personalized Medicine
About: The main focus of this project is to determine the frequency of adverse events in men treated with different therapies for metastatic prostate cancer based on burden of comorbid medical disease.
Principal Investigator: Dr. Martin Schoen
Funded By: This project is funded by the Foundation through the Department of Defense (DOD). This project is a federally funded award.
Title: Incidence of Diabetes and Infection in Abatacept Treated Rheumatoid Arthritis
About: This project is a data-based study that involves constructing a national database (using the VA’s electronic medical records) of patients with rheumatoid arthritis. To learn more about this study and how you can join, contact our research office at (314) 289-7690.
Principal Investigator: Dr. Seth Eisen
Funded By: This study is funded through the Foundation.
Title: Optimizing peri-operative care and survivorship in resectable lung cancer
About: The purpose of this project is to establish peri-operative and survivorship quality metrics (QMs) among patients with resectable NSCLC (stage I-III) and understand baseline adherence to these metrics in the VHA. To learn more about this study and how you can join, contact our research office at (314) 289-7690.
Principal Investigator: Dr. Varun Puri
Co-Investigator: Dr. Brendan Heiden
Funded By: This study is funded by the Foundation through AstraZeneca.
Title: The Trauma Infectious Disease Outcomes Study
About: TIDOS in a pretty unique project that has been funded since 2011. TIDOS is a collaboration between a research group at the Department of Defense and our research group here at the St. Louis VA.
Over the years, TIDOS enrolled over 1,000 military personnel after severe combat trauma. They enrolled them once they got back to Walter Reed and San Antonio Military Medical Center and then followed them forward through time.
The military follows them through their time in DoD care, and then shares their identifiers with us and then we look to see when they enter VA care. So, when they enter VA care, we call them to consent them and collect their VA data and share it back with the DoD.
Then, we put all our data together in a huge database and try to understand how the early elements of care they got in the field or early on after injury, affect their long-term outcome, with the ultimate goal of improving the early care in the field of combat trauma.
Principal Investigator: Dr. Jay McDonald
Related Materials:
Title: A Novel Risk Prediction Model for Checkpoint Inhibitor–Related Autoimmune Toxicities
About: This project’s main aims are to describe rates of autoimmune toxicities within a real-world patient dataset across multiple tumor types and to develop a risk prediction model for grade 3-4 immune related adverse events in patients receiving immunotherapy.
This project is in the data analysis stages.
Principal Investigator: Dr. Jesse Keller
Funded By: This project is a Federally funded project awarded to Dr. Jesse Keller by the Department of Defense and administered by VREF
Bench Science / Animal Related Work
Title: Investigating cellular mechanisms of injury from airborne hazards through proteomics to probe hereditary changes (BURN PIT)
Principal Investigator: Dr. Dhruv Mitroo
Funded By: This study is administered by VREF and funded by the Department of Defense (DOD)
Title: Investigating cellular mechanisms of injury from airborne hazards through proteomics to probe hereditary changes
Principal Investigator: Dr. Dhruv Mitroo
Funded By: This study is administered by VREF and funded by the Department of Defense (DOD).
Title: Understanding and reversing vascular aging-related dementia through median signaling
Principal Investigator: Dr. Susan Farr
Funded By: This project is a federally funded award through the National Institute of Health (NIH) and administered by VREF.
Educational Projects:
About: This project is an educational pharmacy project.
Principal Investigator: Dr. Travis Linneman