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In This Issue:
Kelan Tantisira, MD, MPH, presents during a panel discussion.
Vitamin D isn’t the sole focus of his research, but Kenneth Christopher, MD, has recently begun studying its correlation to ICU patient outcomes. After spending half a day at the first interdisciplinary research workshop offered by the Biomedical Research Institute, Christopher came away with new ideas and two potential researchers to collaborate with.
“I had a page full of ideas and critiques on what I was doing from listening to other people who have been in the field for a long time,” said the physician, who also presented about his own research. “It got me thinking outside the paradigm.”
He was among 130 researchers who attended the inaugural workshop, which aimed to pull together experts on a wide range of vitamin D research, including common mechanisms of diseases in musculoskeletal pathology, cancer, cardiovascular, renal, neuroscience, women’s health and infection and immunology.
“One of our goals with the workshop was to connect everybody to see if we can enhance our own research and collaborate with others working in related areas,” said Scott Weiss, MD, MS, who organized the workshop with Julie Glowacki, PhD, director of the Skeletal Biology Research Laboratory, and JoAnn Manson, MD, DrPH, chief of the Division of Preventive Medicine and principal investigator of the Vitamin D and Omega-3 Trial.
The workshop consisted of 18 eight-minute talks by experts on various areas of vitamin D research, followed by a panel discussion of the scientific resources available to BWH investigators, especially those particular to vitamin D research.
“We were really pleased with the turnout, and that so many young investigators came out to meet their colleagues and learn about other areas that may affect their own work,” said Glowacki.
The vitamin D workshop is the first of this type of workshop offered by the BRI. “To help bring our investigators together and foster innovative collaborative research, the BRI plans a series of this type of interdisciplinary research workshops to gather basic and clinical investigators with expertise, interest and research on a particular theme,” said Jacqueline Slavik, PhD, executive director of the BRI.