College Park-Baltimore Research Collaborations

PSYC Researcher’s Approach to Opioid Use Recovery Rolls into Rural Maryland

December 12, 2022
Jessica Magidson, an associate professor in the University of Maryland Department of Psychology, is taking the peer-based opioid use disorder (OUD) treatment model she and her team developed in Baltimore, Maryland to the state’s Eastern Shore. Magidson’s new study, funded by the NIH HEAL Initiative, is a five-year study evaluating the effectiveness of her team’s “Peer Activate” model in a mobile treatment unit (MTU) for individuals with OUD. The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) awarded Magidson and co-principal investigator Dr. Sarah Kattakuzhy—an associate professor in the Institute of Human Virology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine—more than $2.3 million in early fall to fund the first three years of the study, with an additional nearly $1.5 million to be awarded for the study’s final two years.

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MPower Universities, Partners Announce New Health Computing Institute

November 11, 2022
The University of Maryland Strategic Partnership: MPowering the State (MPower) announced plans to establish the University of Maryland 3-Institute for Health Computing, led by the University of Maryland, Baltimore and the University of Maryland, College Park, in collaboration with the University of Maryland Medical System and Montgomery County, Md. The new institute, located in North Bethesda, will leverage advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and computing to create a premier learning health care system that evaluates de-identified and secure digitized medical health data to diagnose, prevent and treat diseases in patients across the state.

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University of Maryland Strategic Partnership Announces Prestigious MPower Professorships

November 4, 2022
The University of Maryland Strategic Partnership: MPowering the State (MPower) announces the appointment of six professors, three from the University of Maryland, Baltimore and three from the University of Maryland, College Park, as MPower Professors. The 2022 MPower Professors are: John P. Fisher, PhD, Mary Ann Jabra-Rizk, PhD, Sarah B. Murthi, MD, FACS, Philip S. Resnik, PhD, MS, Amy R. Sapkota, PhD, MPH, and David J. Weber, PhD.

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MPower Professor Profile: Luana Colloca, M.D., Ph.D, M.S.

October 28, 2022
Luana Colloca has conducted pioneering groundbreaking studies that have advanced scientific understanding of the psychoneurobiological bases of endogenous systems for pain modulation in humans. As a result, Dr. Colloca has developed an international reputation as a leading scientist for advancing knowledge of the neurobiological mechanisms of placebo and nocebo effects with a multifaceted approach including psychopharmacological, neurobiological, and behavioral aspects.
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MPower Professor Profile: Rao Gullapalli, Ph.D., M.B.A.

October 27, 2022
Rao Gullapalli's research interests include understanding longitudinal changes in the structure and function of the brain following traumatic brain injury and developing image-guided interventional techniques. More recently, Dr. Gullapalli’s lab has been involved in optimizing techniques for Magnetic Resonance guided Focused Ultrasound (MRgFUS) for application in neuromodulation and in treatment of chronic pain. He is also focused on the development of new imaging biomarkers associated with traumatic brain injury (TBI) and to understand the utility of multi-parametric imaging for improving the sensitivity and specificity of injury detection.
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MPower Professor Profile: Christopher M. Jewell, Ph.D.

October 20, 2022
Christopher Jewell has engaged in interdisciplinary research collaboration to fight cancer and autoimmune disease. His work has been supported by $25M in funding, resulting in over 120 manuscripts and patents, including papers in ACS Nano, Cell Reports, Nature, Nature Biotechnology, Nature Materials, PNAS, Trends in Immunology, and others. His awards include being honored by the White House as a recipient of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), the United States' highest honor for scientists and engineers in the first half of their careers. He was also named the state of Maryland’s Outstanding Young Engineer by the Maryland Academy of Science.
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MPower Professor Profile: Deanna L. Kelly, PharmD, BCPP

October 13, 2022
Deanna L. Kelly is a professor in the Department of Psychiatry at University of Maryland School of Medicine and an affiliate professor at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy. She also is the director and chief of the Treatment Research Program and currently Acting Director at the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center. Dr. Kelly has led and been involved in numerous clinical trials involving schizophrenia and severe mental illness and has been active in psychopharmacology research for the past 25 years.
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MPower Professor Profile: Joseph B. Richardson, Ph.D., M.A.

September 30, 2022
Selected for his commitment to interdisciplinary and interprofessional collaboration, Joseph Richardson's research focuses on gun violence, violence, and trauma among African American boys and young men, incarceration as a social determinant of health, and parenting for low-income African American male youth.
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MPower Professor Profile: Yihua Bruce Yu, Ph.D.

September 15, 2022
Selected as an inaugural MPower Professor for his commitment to interdisciplinary and interprofessional collaboration, University of Maryland, Baltimore Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences Yihua Bruce Yu, Ph.D. is also director of the Bio- and Nano-Technology Center in the School of Pharmacy. Dr. Yu’s expertise is in biophysics and bioengineering. 
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$7.9 Million in NIH Awards Propel UMD Aging Research

September 9, 2022
Brain and Behavior Institute (BBI) researchers at UMD to continue to innovate solutions to some of the toughest challenges related to Alzheimer’s and aging. J. Carson Smith, a professor in the Department of Kinesiology, studies whether lifestyle factors such as exercise can be protective against Alzheimer’s for individuals with a genetic predisposition to the disease. Smith’s collaborators include James Barrett, a research associate of anesthesiology at the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB). Michael Cummings, a professor in the Department of Biology, is collaborating with UMB investigators Maureen Kane, a professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Science, and Marta Lipinski, an associate professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, on a four-year $2.7 million award from the NIA to study how aging impacts the brain.
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Researcher’s Discovery Offers Hope for Tendon Injury Repair

September 7, 2022
A University of Maryland-led research team is developing a novel method to restore or improve tendon functionality using a naturally occurring enzyme in the body. The group’s findings, published last month in Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology, could one day lead to therapies to treat acute and chronic connective tissue injuries. The PI, Fischell Department of Bioengineering Associate Professor Catherine K. Kuo, holds a secondary appointment with the University of Maryland, Baltimore’s School of Medicine.
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MPower Professor Profile: Dr. Cheryl Knott

August 31, 2022
Selected for her commitment to interdisciplinary and interprofessional collaboration, University of Maryland, College Park School of Public Health professor Cheryl L. Knott’s social epidemiological research has generated over $13 million in extramural support and more than 150 peer-reviewed publications. In addition to her appointment with the School of Public Health, Dr. Knott acts as an associate professor at the School of Medicine at the University of Maryland, Baltimore.
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$6.9M NIAID Award to Fund Design, Testing of Hepatitis C Vaccine

August 24, 2022
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID) awarded $6.9 million to researchers at the Institute for Bioscience and Biotechnology Research (IBBR) to design a vaccine to combat the virus that causes Hepatitis C (HCV), which affects an estimated 71 million people worldwide and puts them at risk for severe liver disease, including cancer. This five-year award will support a multidisciplinary research team based at IBBR, a joint research enterprise of the University of Maryland, College Park (UMCP), the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The researchers aim to develop a vaccine to induce broadly neutralizing antibodies and long-term memory T cell responses to help prevent HCV infection.
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UMD Researchers Discover New Way to Find Cancer Cells in Blood

July 27, 2022
University of Maryland bioengineers have developed a new technique to capture and analyze circulating tumor cells, one of the primary culprits in metastatic cancer. Their approach and findings, presented earlier this month in the journal ACS Nano, could one day lead to greater understanding of why and how certain cancers spread, opening the door to new personalized therapeutic options. The research team includes medical professionals from the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore.
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Jewell Leads Team in Advancing Multiple Sclerosis Research

July 15, 2022
Prof. Christopher Jewell was awarded a five-year, $2.8 million National Institutes of Health grant to develop new biomaterial-based approaches for therapeutic vaccines aimed at combating multiple sclerosis (MS) and other autoimmune disorders. His research team includes personnel from the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore, as well as Fischell Department of Bioengineering researchers at the University of Maryland, College Park. 
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College Park-Baltimore Research Team Co-Led by Cummings, Kane, and Lipinski Awarded $2.7M to Study Impacts of Aging on the Brain

May 31, 2022
Prof. Michael Cummings is part of a College Park-Baltimore research team funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to study how aging impacts the brain. The collaboration was spurred by a state funding initiative called AI + Medicine for High Impact (AIM-HI), which joins faculty from both universities to tackle major issues that require cross-campus expertise in artificial intelligence and medicine. Working with Maureen Kane and Marta Lipinski at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, Cummings will continue to advance research on aging and traumatic brain injury, which could eventually contribute toward treatments for age-related diseases like dementia and Alzheimer’s.
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Bringing Health Care’s Vision of Tomorrow Into Focus: New Center for Medical Innovations in Extended Reality Launched

May 4, 2022
The University of Maryland is leading a multi-institutional effort that will focus on developing, testing and certifying XR technologies in medicine and health care. The initiative was launched with $5M in support from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and technology titans including Google, Microsoft and Meta.   The new Center for Medical Innovations in Extended Reality, known as MIXR, joins UMD computer scientists and engineers with physicians and clinicians at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore and the University of Michigan to improve medical training, patient management and health care outcomes across all areas of clinical practice.
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University of Maryland Research Team Developing ‘Super-Eye’ to Investigate Marijuana’s Effects on Heart

April 6, 2022
Eleonora Tubaldi, assistant professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Maryland, College Park, is working with two professors at the University of Maryland Baltimore School of Medicine—Dr. Jean Judy, a diagnostic radiology expert, and Dr. Timm Michael Dickfeld, a cardiac electrophysiologist—to use machine learning and advanced computing to obtain hitherto elusive answers about the hidden links between cannabis and heart health. The research is supported by an an MPower seed grant awarded by the University of Maryland Strategic Partnership: MPowering the State, which leverages the complementary strengths of University of Maryland, Baltimore  and the University of Maryland, College Park.
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MPower Partnership Announces $3M in Seed Grants for Collaborative Research

March 2, 2022
The Joint Steering Council of the University of Maryland Strategic Partnership: MPowering the State (MPower), a formal collaboration between UMB and UMCP to leverage the strengths of both institutions, announced $3M in seed funding, ranging from $49,000 to $250,000 per grant, for 17 targeted, jointly led projects in six key research areas.
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Inaugural UMD Neuro-Link Grant Supports Glioblastoma Research

February 16, 2022
The University of Maryland, Baltimore Department of Neurosurgery and the University of Maryland, College Park Fischell Department of Bioengineering (BIOE) awarded the inaugural Neuro-Link program grant to a team of College Park and Baltimore researchers who are working to develop a novel technique to treat glioblastoma (GBM), the deadliest and most common type of adult brain cancer. The Neuro-Link program aims to accelerate and elevate the impact of joint research projects to create innovative new systems, approaches, and technologies to improve patient care, providing $100,000 annually, for up to three years of support.
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Institute for Bioscience and Biotechnology Research Receives $16.8 M Investment from the National Institute of Standards and Technology

January 13, 2022
The Institute for Bioscience and Biotechnology Research (IBBR) announces a newly funded five-year cooperative agreement with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) headed by the Co-Directors of IBBR, Dr. David J. Weber (PI) and Dr. John Marino (NIST). This award provides more than $3.3 million each year to support groundbreaking research, including technology and standards development that will impact vaccine and therapeutic discovery and development, and to improve access to life-saving treatments for addressing other crucial health challenges.  IBBR is a joint research enterprise of the University of Maryland, College Park, the University of Maryland, Baltimore and NIST.
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The University of Maryland Announces Eight Inaugural MPower Professors

November 11, 2021
Eight professors from the University of Maryland, College Park and University of Maryland, Baltimore, four from each university, have been chosen as the inaugural MPower Professors. This award from the University of Maryland Strategic Partnership: MPowering the State (MPower) recognizes, incentivizes, and fosters collaborations between faculty in Baltimore and College Park.
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Experts Urge More Attention to Airborne Viruses at Medical Facilities

November 10, 2021
The infection control policies in force at many health care facilities are based on outdated models of how respiratory viruses spread and badly need revision, according to a team of leading experts that includes University of Maryland, College Park and University of Maryland, Baltimore researchers.  Their review of current best practices and suggestions for policy updates was published in Annals of Internal Medicine.
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MPower Grant Supports University of Maryland, College Park and Baltimore Clinical and Translational Research Collaborations

November 3, 2021
A new University of Maryland Strategic Partnership, MPowering the State (MPower) grant will provide $575,000 per year over the next three years to support clinical and translational research collaborations at the University of Maryland, College Park and the University of Maryland, Baltimore. In conjunction with a new cooperative agreement, the MPower award will help make it possible for the College Park campus to access resources at UMB’s Institute for Clinical and Translational Research (ICTR) as a partner institution. Investigators will benefit from clinical and translational research resources through the ICTR, including expert patient- and community-centered services; biostatistical support for study design, implementation, and interpretation; and pre- and postdoctoral training awards.
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University of Maryland to Help Lead Nationwide Study of Early Childhood Brain Development, Impact of Early Adversity

October 1, 2021
The National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA), in collaboration with several other NIH institutes, selected the University of Maryland as one of 25 institutions across the country to implement the HEALthy Brain and Child Development (HBCD) study. This large, multi-year project will recruit a diverse cohort of pregnant people and follow them and their children into early childhood. Researchers will examine typical developmental trajectories and how prenatal and postnatal exposure to alcohol, drugs and other adversities like poverty and trauma impact the structure and function of the brain, as well as the development of social, emotional and cognitive processes. Distinguished University Professor of Human Development Nathan Fox, one of UMD’s principal investigators for the study, will lead the collection of EEG data for the national consortium. Brenda Jones Harden, Alison Richman Professor for Children and Families at the University of Maryland, Baltimore’s School of Social Work, will head up recruitment and retention of participants and families through hospitals in the University of Maryland system, as well as other clinics and community-based organizations.
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UMD to Lead $15M Project Investigating the Role of Aerosols in Flu Transmission

September 13, 2021
A University of Maryland-led effort has been awarded $15M by the NIH to develop new technologies for collecting viruses from the air and conduct a five-year randomized, controlled trial. School of Public Health Professor Donald Milton, M.D., will lead the initiative. As part of the project, researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore, led by Dr. Wilbur Chen, will recruit groups of healthy people whose antibody levels make them susceptible to influenza and are unvaccinated to volunteer to live in a quarantine facility for about two weeks. Researchers will also recruit people diagnosed with influenza to come stay in the quarantine facility and interact with the healthy people.
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How Tech Can Fill Gaps in Mental Health Care

August 18, 2021
With $1.2M in new funding from NSF, University of Maryland researchers are creating a computerized framework that can meld language and speech analysis with machine learning and clinical expertise to help patients and mental health clinicians connect and head off crises. The project was born with the help of a seed grant through the AI + Medicine for High Impact (AIM-HI) Challenge Awards, which bring together scholars at the University of Maryland, College Park with medical researchers at the University of Maryland, Baltimore on major research initiatives that link artificial intelligence and medicine. Deanna Kelly, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore, is another of the project’s leaders, as are Electrical and Computer Engineering Professor Carol Espy-Wilson and Computer Science Assistant Professor John Dickerson, both at College Park.
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Five College Park-Baltimore Collaborations Awarded MPower BHHP Grants

March 29, 2021
The Brain Health and Human Performance Initiative (BHHP), part of the University of Maryland Strategic Partnership: MPowering the State initiative, announced the award recipients for its 2021 seed grant program. The mission of the BHHP seed grant program is to facilitate collaborations between the University of Maryland, College Park and the University of Maryland, Baltimore and to promote complementary translational research. The BHHP seed program encourages research in three areas: the multimodal enhancement of human performance; the development of new models, analytics, biomarkers, and brain imaging techniques; and the advancement of “-omics” approaches, which endeavor to connect the different scales at which researchers study the brain. The five projects funded by the BHHP in 2021 reflect these foci, uniting College Park researchers from the College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences and the School of Public Health with Baltimore researchers from five departments in the School of Medicine.
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MPower in Action: COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy Study

February 1, 2021
Xiaoli Nan, a professor of communication science and co-director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Communication at the University of Maryland, College Park, and Clement A. Adebamowo, professor of epidemiology and public health at the Institute of Human Virology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore, are co-leading a study on to find out what influences the African American community when it comes to vaccine hesitancy.
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University of Maryland Launches New Brain and Behavior Institute, Announces Founding Director

January 25, 2021
The new Institute, led by Biology Professor Elizabeth Quinlan, will play a vital role in the University of Maryland College Park neuroscience ecosystem, which also includes the Neuroscience and Cognitive Science interdisciplinary graduate program and new undergraduate neuroscience major launched last fall. The BBI will also continue to strengthen interactions with collaborators at the University of Maryland, Baltimore.
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University of Maryland Awarded $4.6 Million Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center

December 3, 2020
A University of Maryland-led research collaboration received a $4.6 million grant to improve rehabilitation interventions for patients with sensorimotor impairments resulting from a stroke, as well as for older adults who face a high risk of falls. Funded by the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research, the College Park-Baltimore research team will work to develop technology-enabled therapies and novel techniques to assess impairment.
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Advances Continue in Organ Delivery by Drone

October 5, 2020
In April 2019, unmanned aviation systems (UAS) pioneers at the University of Maryland College Park, in collaboration with the University of Maryland Medical Center (UMMC) and the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) in Baltimore, conducted the first-ever delivery of an organ to a transplant patient by drone—a breakthrough that could help revolutionize a process long plagued by logistics challenges. Now, two of the personnel who carried out the initial Baltimore mission—Anthony Pucciarella, who directed the operation in the field, and Ryan Henderson, pilot of the drone—are celebrating further milestones as they continue to push the technology forward in new roles.
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UMIACS Faculty Receive MPower Funding to Improve Mental Telehealth Services Using AI

September 1, 2020
Computer scientists at the University of Maryland, College Park, are collaborating with child behavioral specialists at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, to improve telehealth services for children living in rural areas of the state, who are now even more isolated due to COVID-19. The focus of the study will be on the children’s caregivers, the researchers say, who are typically the primary target for child behavioral interventions.
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University of Maryland Announces Coronavirus Research Seed Fund Award Recipients

April 9, 2020
The University of Maryland Division of Research announced 11 recipients of Coronavirus Research Seed Fund Awards. One of the grants was awarded to a project titled "COVID-19 Exhaled Breath Aerosols and Transmission Risk," co-led by Dr. Donald Milton, Professor in the School of Public Health in College Park and Dr. Matthew Frieman at the University of Maryland, Baltimore. This project will screen critical UMD staff for COVID-19 to see if they are shedding the virus, improving campus safety and facilitating research on how to limit transmission.
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MPower Day Showcases the Power of Collaboration

January 30, 2020
The University of Maryland Strategic Partnership: MPowering the State showcased eight years of partnership between the University of Maryland, Baltimore and the University of Maryland, College Park at the annual MPowering the State Advocacy Day on Jan. 21 in Annapolis.  The two-hour expo designed to highlight the combined power of the two institutions to grow the state economy, advance research, and demonstrate service to Maryland citizens featured some of the best collaborations between the state’s largest research engines.
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