COBRE in Acute Care Research & Rural Disparities 
Enhancing emergency and acute care research throughout Northern New England.
Administration of the COBRE Program
This COBRE program at MaineHealth Institute for Research is led by Dr. Doug Sawyer, Program Director, with support from Dr. Tom Gridley, the Co-Investigator of the Administrative and Professional Development Core of this COBRE. This program is supported by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, National Institutes of Health, Award Number P20GM139745.
The overall program has four major goals:
1. Provide the leadership, governance, and advisory network to establish a COBRE in Acute Care Research and Rural Disparities at Maine Medical Center.
2. Provide project and mentorship support to launch the careers of promising clinician-scientists within this scientific program, and help ensure their long-term scientific success as independent researchers.
3. Enhance the capabilities of Maine Medical Center’s research infrastructure and core facilities to support human subject research of both our COBRE investigators and other institutional and external researchers, and to stimulate innovative research methodologies and new collaborations.
4. Enhance our existing Metabolic COBRE and NNE-CTR supported pilot project programs to focus on translational and clinical opportunities related to acute care and rural health disparities.
Acute Care Research Up Close
This video describes a collaborative project with the Neurocritical Care Department to determine if high Neuregulin levels correlate with improved survival after cardiac arrest.
COBRE Projects
This COBRE program has four clinical/translational project leaders with clinical research areas of primary acute care need: three promising early career investigators and one mid-career investigator. These Project Leaders have complementary research expertise, and have already established collaborations with each other. Projects details are described below.
Teresa May, DO, MS, is the lead scientist on Project 1 of the COBRE. Her project will examine how MaineHealth can improve rural patient outcomes after cardiac arrest by creating a standard best practice protocol for care.
David Gagnon, PharmD, is the lead scientist on Project 2 of the COBRE. His project will study how giving patients the antibiotic ceftriaxone after cardiac arrest might help improve outcomes after resuscitation. Learn more
David Seder, MD, is the lead scientist on Project 3 of the COBRE. His project in collaboration with Sergey Ryzhov, MD, PhD, will look at how the types of white blood cells patients have in their bloodstream after cardiac arrest may impact their recovery.
Alexa Craig, MD, MS, is the lead scientist on Project 4 of the COBRE. Her project will continue her research into how rural hospitals can use telemedicine to make up for gaps in experience when newborn babies quickly need to be put on therapeutic hypothermia in order to survive.
COBRE Core
Programs
This program also supports two core programs that enhance the capabilities of MHIR’s core facilities and research infrastructure to support human subject research of this COBRE’s investigators and other institutional and external researchers, to stimulate innovative research methodologies and new collaborations, as well as engage in human subjects research that require community engagement and outreach to better understand challenges to research participation of individuals from rural areas.
Community Engagement, Bioethics, & Outreach
Frank Chessa, PhD, and Richard Riker, MD, are leading the Community Engagement, Bioethics, & Outreach Core with guidance from Neil Korsen MD, MSc, who brings to bear the expertise of the NNE-CTR Rural Engagement Core. This group will oversee community engagement in clinical research, as well as research training for clinicians across MaineHealth.
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This COBRE Core group will provide project and mentorship support to launch the careers of promising clinician-scientists within this scientific program, and help ensure their long-term scientific success as independent researchers.
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The mentorship network and services provided by our Community Engagement, Bioethics, and Outreach Core facility will enhance future human subjects research, increase the understanding of individual preferences from diverse backgrounds for acute care research via community engagement, and synergize with existing NIH-funded programs at Maine Medical Center.
Pilot Project Program
The Pilot Project Program is managed by the Administrative and Professional Development Core of the Acute Care COBRE. The Pilot Project Program is designed to stimulate new collaborations and multidisciplinary partnerships, demonstrate the feasibility of new clinical and translational research projects, and enable the collection of preliminary data for future applications for peer-reviewed extramural funding. Two projects of up to $50,000 in direct costs each will be funded yearly by the COBRE.
The External and Internal Advisory Committees are created to give the COBRE leadership and project leaders support and strategic direction. The external advisory committee provides scientific direction and guidance, consisting of national experts in the field.
This internal advisory committee is comprised of research professionals with significant leadership experience from MaineHealth/Maine Medical Center, who provide strategic links to existing programs.
External Advisory
Committee
Alexandra Adams, MD, PhD
Director of the Center for American Indian and Rural Health Equity (CAIRHE), Montana State University
Clifton Callaway, MD, PhD
Executive Vice Chair of Emergency Medicine, University of Pittsburgh
Anne Mosenthal, MD
Chief Academic Officer, Lahey Hospital and Medical Center
Internal Advisory
Committee
Michael Baumann, MD
Chair, Emergency Medical Services at MaineHealth
Daniel Diekema, MD
Vice Chair for Research; Director, Division of Infectious Diseases Department of Medicine, Maine Medical Center
Lucy Liaw, PhD
Director of Research Training Programs and PI of the COBRE in Metabolic Networks
Mary Ottolini, MD
Chair, Department of Pediatrics at MaineHealth
Clifford Rosen, MD
Director of the Center for Clinical and Translational Research and PI of the NNE-CTR
Yvonne Jonk, PhD
Interim Director, Maine Rural Health Research Center, University of Southern Maine
This program is supported by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, National Institutes of Health, Award Number P20GM139745. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH.