Science in the Triangle

North Carolina may be one of the most diverse states in the Union, but it is still not immune to the health disparities that plague the rest of the nation. Minorities in the Tar Heel state experience significant gaps in health and health care when it comes to cancer, cardiovascular disease, obesity, diabetes and HIV/AIDS. Over a lifetime, even minor disadvantages can add up, cutting short the lives of those in the minority.

Translating new discoveries into better health outcomes for all NC residents was the topic of a conference last Friday that brought together researchers and community advocates from around the state.

“We are looking at ways – all across the spectrum — to improve the health of North Carolina,” said Giselle Corbie-Smith, deputy director of the North Carolina Translational and Clinical Sciences Institute (NC TraCS), which sponsored the all-day event. “So to begin with, we have to look at some of these conditions where we have populations and groups of people who are disproportionately affected, because by improving their health, we can improve the health of our state.”

The conference highlighted the perpectives of individuals from all along that spectrum, from basic science researchers to community partners. Reverend Danny Ellis, one of the key note speakers, shared his thoughts as a leader of a rural church that is often open to research but is not always trusting of researchers’ motives.

“What is your motivation – are you just out there to get your ticket punched – to go from an assistant to a full professor?,” asked Ellis. “Do you really care about HIV or is it just the latest thing? Because I will find out your motivation, if I ask you to come out here on a Saturday morning to help out and you can’t do it.”

Ellis, who has written over $15 million in grants for his own research, says that researchers need to understand that the community’s needs might be very different from their own.

“I have already told you I am saved and going to heaven, and I can go there with diabetes,” said Ellis. “Just because it is imporant to you, doesn’t mean it is important to me.”

Improving health in the community is not just about more health programs, or more translational research, he said, but it is about strange partnerships. Fostering new partnerships among the people in attendance was one of the main goals of the conference, said organizer Corbie-Smith. Raleigh YWCA worker and conference participant Kerry Waite says she made a number of valuable connections at the networking luncheon, including meeting a member of a local church who is interested in coordinating a health fair.

“We are a community-based organization that is involved in many different types of initiatives to improve the health of the community,” said Waite, who has a background in molecular biology. “It was great for me to learn about how to partner with universities and faith-based organizations, to actually translate these latest discoveries into something that will be useful to people in our area.”

The conference featured a number of concurrent sessions on health disparities research, such as studies on preterm birth and cancer care, as well as skills building workshops, such as how best to recruit study participants and how to build multidisciplinary teams.

In one of the afternoon workshops, UNC researcher Michael Fried described how his own laboratory and others in the field have looked for an explanation to why African Americans respond so much more poorly to treatment for hepatitis C than Caucasians.

“We looked at this nonstop for a number of years, and we couldn’t find a single smoking gun that is responsible for the difference,” said Fried.

It wasn’t until a few months ago, Fried explained, that researchers from Duke discovered a genetic variant that could explain in large part why some people can be cured of the disease whereas others cannot.

In addition to covering the science and the skills involved in translational research, the conference also hosted a session on the resources available from NC TraCS itself, which gives out millions of dollars in funding every year as the academic home of the NIH Clinical and Translational Science Awards at UNC-Chapel Hill.