The University of Chicago Research Funding

• Principal Investigator:Jesse Hall, Professor of Medicine and Anesthesia & Critical Care, Section Chief, Pulmonary & Critical Care Medicine, University of Chicago Medical Center
• Start Date:
• Total Award Amount: $616,348 (first year); $465,832 (second year)

Public Health Relevance

This application is to request funds to enhance the University of Chicago Sleep Research Program by recruiting tenure-track faculty at the Assistant Professor level. The new recruit will be mentored to ensure success in academic medicine with a focus on sleep disorders and cardio-metabolic risk.

Project Description

The present application is to enhance research efforts at the University of Chicago that aim to advance the understanding and treatment of sleep disorders by obtaining support for the hiring of a new tenure-track faculty at the Assistant Professor level. The focus of the world renowned Sleep Research Program at the University of Chicago is the relationship between sleep and health, particularly cardio-metabolic risk. The program is directed by Eve Van Cauter, Ph.D., Professor of Medicine. This multidisciplinary program currently includes 13 tenured or tenure-track faculty members from the Sections of Pulmonary and Critical Care, Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism and Emergency Medicine of the Department of Medicine, from the Department of Pediatrics and from the Department of Health Studies who are actively involved in research efforts related to the health impact of sleep and its disorders. The program includes basic scientists using animal models of hypoxia, clinical investigators conducting laboratory studies in small groups of normal adults and children as well as In patient populations, neuroscientists developing novel quantitative analyses of the sleep and wake EEG, physician scientists using genetic approaches and epidemiologists conducting primary and secondary analyses of existing data bases.

The individual to be hired under this award would bring to the existing program crucial missing expertise in prospective cohort and intervention field studies in larger subject populations with rigorous assessments of sleep and cardio-metabolic measures. Such studies would bridge the findings from basic science and short-term clinical research center studies with the body of epidemiologic evidence linking steep disturbances and adverse health consequences.

Consistent with the funding priority of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute for this RFA, the present application has identified a highly qualified and exceptionally promising new independent investigator. Our commitment is to appoint Kristen L. Knutson, Ph.D. (Biomedical Anthropology) as Assistant Professor (tenure track) in the Section of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine of the Department of Medicine at the University of Chicago for a 4-year period starting on September 1, 2009. The present application seeks to obtain 2 years of funding to cover 80% of her salary and to provide a start-up package with the resources needed to develop a pilot research project and enable her to secure independent funding. Dr. Knutson has a superb track record of research activities, including field studies of sleep in diverse populations, and career development in sleep disorders and cardio-metabolic risk, a research area relevant to the primary mission of the NHLBI.

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, NIH Award number: 1P30HL101859-01