HJF selects three promising USU doctoral students to receive 2011-12 fellowships

The Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, Inc. has selected three promising Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USU) doctoral students to receive fellowships for the 2011-12 academic year. The program, established in 1988, includes two Henry M. Jackson Fellowships and one Val G. Hemming Fellowship. Each fellow receives a stipend and travel support.

Jeremy Gilbreath, a fourth-year graduate student in the emerging infections diseases program, won the Val G. Hemming Fellowship. Gilbreath works in the laboratory of Dr. Scotty Merrell, focusing on the regulatory mechanisms of the gastric bacterial pathogen Helicobacter pylori.

Gilbreath is investigating the structure and function of the ferric uptake regulator protein Fur, which is important for colonization of gastric mucosa, and exhibits the unusual ability to regulate gene expression in both iron-bound and iron-free forms of the protein. Through the generation and screening of Fur mutations, Gilbreath hopes to better understand transcriptional regulation in H. pylori, and why regulation by the Fur protein in related bacterial pathogens is limited to the iron-bound form. This research may lend insights into the development of new drug targets and vaccine strategies for the prevention of H. pylori, which currently infects nearly half the worldwide population.

Camden Elliott, recipient of a Henry M. Jackson Fellowship, is a fifth-year student completing her thesis project in Dr. Marian Tanofsky-Kraff's laboratory in the medical and clinical psychology program at USU. Elliott's master's project provided a preliminary examination of the physiological and psychosocial correlates of youth who met the proposed research criteria for Loss of Control Eating Disorder.

Elliott's dissertation project is a feasibility study assessing a new intervention involving parent training in the prevention of pediatric obesity. Her study targets low-income, African-American parents of overweight children, as these children are particularly at high risk for developing adult obesity. Elliott hopes this study will help identify a novel and potentially successful approach to address the growing rates of childhood obesity.

Kerry Whittaker, a sixth-year student in the medical and clinical psychology program, also received a Henry M. Jackson Fellowship. Whittaker is completing a project in the multidisciplinary field of cardiovascular behavioral medicine in the laboratory of Dr. David Krantz. Her research focuses on the relationship between positive psychosocial factors-such as optimism and adaptive coping skills-and improved cardiovascular health.

In particular, she is exploring the relationship between optimism and immune processes that have been associated with coronary heart disease outcomes by conducting studies to determine whether a correlation exists between optimistic behavior in heart-failure patients and improved inflammatory markers of heart disease, such as decreased expression levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines or increased expression of anti-inflammatory markers. Whittaker hopes to contribute to the understanding of how positive behavioral interventions such as increasing patient optimism and use of adaptive coping styles may mitigate or protect against heart failure, which is expected to affect more than half a million Americans each year.