2021 Health Scholar Showcase Award Recipients

A Characterization of Diagnostic Efficacy via Structural Balance

Authors:

Lucas Rusnak, Department of Mathematics, Texas State University

Jelena Tesic -  Department of Computer Science, Texas State University

How the award helped expand the project: "Five papers have been published/ accepted in the area of mathematical psychology, social networking, and information discovery. This project also resulted in a new role as a Faculty Fellow with Community Health & Economic Resiliency Research (CHERR), an initiative of THRC, that helps communities prepare, adapt, and recover from public health emergencies in the state. I also have been assisting with the implementation of a collaborative data science pipeline for CHERR and THRC."

The Food, Feelings, and Family Study: Comparison of the efficacy of traditional methods, social media, and broadcast email to recruit pregnant women to an observational, longitudinal nutrition study

Author:

Michelle Lane. Ph.D. - Department of Family and Consumer Science, Texas State University

How the award helped expand the project: "The award allowed us to expand our work and participate in a multi-generational rodent study looking at how the consumption of methyl donor nutrients by mothers during pregnancy may ameliorate the increased risk for anxiety, depression, decreased coping, and cognition in their offspring caused by the consumption of a western-like, high fat/high sucrose diet by the mothers and their offspring. We expect to spend the summer completing molecular and metabolic analyses. This study should result in at least two publications related to these parameters (there are multiple investigators and sources of funding and other parameters being assessed) and multiple proposals submitted to the NIH. The research poster was also published."

Predicting Psychological Distress Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic by Machine Learning: Discrimination and Coping Mechanisms of Korean Immigrants in the U.S.

Authors:

Shinwoo Choi, Ph.D. - School of Social Work, Texas State University

Yong Je Kim, Ph.D. -  Ingram School of Engineering, Texas State University

How the award helped expand the project: "Thanks to the Translational Health Research Excellence award our research team was able to make significant progress in further data analysis, manuscript writing, and publications. We have a total of six manuscripts published so far, and have three under review.  We also worked on related projects to develop our ideas for external funding opportunities. So far, we have submitted three grants both internally and externally." 

Health Care Fraud Analytics: Explaining Billing Patterns

Authors:

Tahir Ekin, Ph.D. - McCoy College of Business, Texas State University

Paul Damien -  McCombs School of Business, University of Texas at Austin

How the award helped expand the project: As a result, the project had two peer reviewed publications, "Multicriteria decision frontiers for prescription anomaly detection over time” and "Analysis of Health Care Billing via Quantile Variable Selection Models” as well as ongoing data talks with researchers from University of Houston College of Medicine and Humana Integrated Health Sciences Institute and invited talks and courses.

Functions of the Human ZGRF1 Helicase in DNA Damage Repair

Authors:

Xiaoyu Xue, Ph.D. - Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Texas State University

Michael Lisby - Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen

Andre´ Brannvoll - Center for Chromosome Stability, Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, University of Copenhagen 

Leticia Gonzalez - Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Texas State University

How the award helped expand the project: "The award allowed us to use a variety of biochemical, cell biological, and genetic approaches to decipher the mechanistic role of a human helicase ZGRF1 in replication fork repair and R-loop resolution. We expect to submit a NSF career grant in the summer. The study should result in another high impact publication in the DNA replication and damage repair field. The award also resulted in two invited talks 1)    Xue, X., "Mechanisms of ZGRF1 in Replication-Blocking DNA Damage Repair and Homologous Recombination," UT Health San Antonio. (December 13, 2021). 2) Xue, X., "Mechanisms of ZGRF1/Mte1 in Replication-Blocking DNA Damage Repair and Homologous Recombination," Cleveland State University. (March 26, 2021) and a publication"

Time restricted eating reduces inflammation and stress response to a firegrounds test in professional firefighters

Authors:

Matthew McAllister & Drew Gonzalez - Department of Health and Human Performance, Texas State University

Hunter Waldman - University of North Alabama

How the award helped expand the project: "I was able to spend the summer in the lab working on the analysis for my study. The analysis and write up are complete and we have two very strong studies we will be submitting to high impact journals. We are planning to submit this project to FEMA for funding at the end of 2022. These are major studies examining predictors of cardiovascular disease risk in professional firefighters."