In 2023, Baptist Health South Florida and Florida International University (FIU) announced a collaboration to expand physician training, research, and patient care for the benefit of the South Florida community. The collaboration with FIU put Baptist Hospital on track to become a statutory teaching hospital, with expanded undergraduate and graduate medical education programs, clinical research, and patient care. As part of the collaboration, the two organizations established the joint FIU Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine and Baptist Health South Florida Research Collaboration Committee, which oversees the Pilot Project Funds initiative. The committee recently announced eight 2024 Pilot Project awardees.

“We could not be more excited and grateful to receive funding for so many promising research endeavors at Baptist Health,” said Scott Lipkin, DPM, vice president and chief research officer at Baptist Health South Florida. “This represents an important step forward for our various research teams, who are conducting critical research in cancer, neurology, and other areas that has the potential to have a positive impact on patients in South Florida and around the globe. It also marks an important milestone for Baptist Health as a research-focused healthcare organization.”

The total volume of the research funding awarded in 2024 is a staggering $480,000. The projects include leading-edge research in the areas of dementia, pain relief,  lymphoma, as well as brain and oral cancers, among others. Five of the eight projects are co-led by physician-researchers at Miami Cancer Institute, the others by experts at our Miami Neuroscience Institute and Marcus Neuroscience Institute, all part of Baptist Health South Florida.

The eight research projects that have been selected for funding are:

1. "Designing a more effective CAR-T cell treatment against diffuse large B cell lymphoma." Charles Dimitroff, Ph.D., Manmeet Ahluwalia, M.D., & Guenther Koehne, M.D., Ph.D.

2. "Glycoprotein biomarkers for early detection of oral cancer." Kevin Chandler, Ph.D., & Geoffrey Young, M.D., Ph.D.

3. "Advanced screening of novel compounds for targeting glioblastoma stem cells." Adel Nefzi, Ph.D., & Yazmin Odia, M.D.

4. "Mapping meningioma phosphoproteome and circular transcriptome to patient outcomes." Maria Franco, Ph.D., Jose Otero, M.D., Ph.D., & Maria Abreu, Ph.D.

5. "Development of proteasome inhibitors for the treatment of glioblastoma." Kyung Bo Kim, Ph.D., & Manmeet Ahluwalia, M.D.

6. "Uncovering the mechanisms of pain relief by peripheral magnetic stimulation (PMS)." Saurabh Aggarwal, M.D., Ph.D., Patricia Junquera, M.D., & Eduardo Icaza, M.D.

7. "Extracellular vesicles as circulating biomarkers of malignant neoplasms of the lung." David Marciano, Ph.D., Maria Abreu, Ph.D., & Rumaisa Rashid, Ph.D.

8. "Linking patients' subjective cognitive impairment to the default mode network: implications for the development of dementia." Patricia Junquera, M.D., & G. Peter Gliebus, M.D.

“This Baptist Health and FIU initiative provides annual funding for innovative pilot projects to advance the most promising joint research efforts,” added Lipkin. “The hope is that within one year the research teams generate preliminary data that will support future independent grant applications with other organizations such as the NIH.”

As a general rule, each project must include a primary faculty member from FIU’s Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine and a collaborator (or more) from Baptist Health. Applying researchers can choose their topics freely, but new projects that align with the two organizations’ key focus areas are preferred.

For more information on the latest research conducted at Baptist Health South Florida, please visit https://baptisthealth.net/about-baptist-health/research