The University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC)'s Collaborative Research Network (CORNET) has announced the four research teams that have won the 2018 Clinical Awards.

Nearly two years since its inception, the CORNET Awards have been the seed of more than $1.3 million in funding to support new collaborative research teams and their groundbreaking initiatives. The winning teams will receive a combined total of $200,000, divided evenly amongst each group, to foster their novel research projects.

The CORNET-Clinical Awards are a mechanism for stimulating new research initiatives amongst UTHSC clinical faculty members (physicians, dentists, clinical psychologists, RNs, physical and occupational therapists, clinical pharmacists, etc.). While the main targets for this award were junior, new, or young investigators, established UTHSC faculty members who were new to research or had plans to enter a new field of research were also considered.

The awardees and their project titles:

• Athena S. Davenport, PhD, Patricia Adams-Graves, MD - "Investigation of miR-29 as a Novel Fetal Hemoglobin Inducer and Treatment for Patients with Sickle Cell Disease"
• Maria Carrillo-Marquez, MD; James Lewis, PhD; Asim Choudri, MD; John DeVincenzo, MD; Heather Smallwood, PhD; Roozbeh Rezaie, PhD - "Defining and Predicting Outcomes of Congenital Cytomegalovirus Infection."
• Khyobeni Mozhui, PhD; Jeffrey H. Brooks, DMD - "Epigenomic Study of Short-Term Prescription Opioid Use."
• Manish Tripathi, PhD; David Shibata, MD; Meena Jaggi, PhD - "Role of LncRNA-MALAT1 in Colorectal Cancer Health Disparity."