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Alcorta's Folklorico Diamante

To support Inolvidable - Folklorico Dance Spectacular for Kids, an educational folklorico outreach program for preK-12th grade students in Corpus Christi.

K Space Contemporary

To support the Senior Outreach Program, providing arts enrichment workshops and presentations in senior recreation centers, in the Corpus Christi area.

Corpus Christi Symphony Orchestra

To support the Corpus Christi Youth Orchestra, which provides instruction and at least two performance opportunities for select 3rd-12th graders.

Alley Theatre

To support the Texas Young Playwrights Exchange program for high school students in Silsbee.

Art Museum of South Texas (formerly STIA)

To support the AMSTeens Program, a multidisciplinary art experience for high school students in the Corpus Christi area.

Alcorta's Folklorico Diamante

To support the 12th Competencia Folklorica de Tejas, a Mexican folk dance competition in Corpus Christi.

Melody of Hope

To support an expansion of a music therapy program to provide weekly sessions for youth and adults currently residing in a safe house or clinic in North Texas.

Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra

To support the Young Persons' Concerts designed to integrate a live performance of classical music with relevant state standards for 3rd-5th grade students.

Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center

To support Viva Mi Cultura, a traditional dance lecture, demonstration, and performance series developed for K-12th grade students residing in socio-economically disadvantaged San Antonio communities.

Amphibian Stage Productions

To support field trips and a speaker series for middle and high school students in the Fort Worth area.

James Dick Foundation for the Performing Arts

To support the annual Round Top Music Festival that hosts emerging artists from around the world and attracts residents and visitors to Fayette County with performances and workshops.

El Paso Symphony Orchestra

To support the Young People’s Concerts, educational orchestra performances for fifth grade students in El Paso and the surrounding region.

Carver Development Board

To support summer dance and theater camp programs serving at-risk youth on San Antonio's eastside, culminating in performances.

McKinney Philharmonic Orchestra (dba)

To support recitals by the Youth Orchestra Chamber Music group at senior and assisted living facilities, in the McKinney area.

Greater Denton Arts Council

To support Splash, an interactive and immersive community-based dance and art installation for all ages that uses a hybrid live and digital format to create online and live audience participation.

Art Room Denton (dba)

To support Arts for Veterans, a mental health support program for Denton County veterans consisting of structured art classes and open studio sessions.

Writer's Garret

To support Write To Heal, an ongoing program which teaches participants to use writing as a tool for coping with physical, mental and emotional challenges, in Dallas.

Lubbock Arts Alliance

To support ARTAdventures!, an after-school arts class for at-risk youth at Guadalupe-Parkway Neighborhood Centers in Lubbock.

Dallas Theater Center

To support Project Discovery, an award-winning after-school program which provides free in-depth theater experiences for at-risk teens from north Texas high schools.

Chinatown-International District Exhibit Committee

The Chinatown-International District Exhibit Committee's COVID-19 Exhibit will educate the public about the effects of COVID-19 on Asian Pacific Islander Americans in the Chinatown-International District through a free digital exhibit of art, personal stories, and artifacts. This project is a partnership with the Wing Luke Museum located at 719 S King Street. This project will be completed by December 31,2021.

NIA - National Institute on Aging

ABSTRACT The ASPIRE: Alzheimer’s Summer Program Inspiring Research Engagement (T35 mechanism) at the Krieger Klein Alzheimer’s Research Center at Rutgers is designed to inspire and prepare medical students to pursue careers in bridging ADRD research and clinical care. This summer program offers 10-week, full-time immersive research experiences to 10 medical students per summer, under the mentorship of 10 accomplished scientists. These mentors, with active NIH funding portfolios and proven mentoring success, ensure trainees receive high-quality guidance and sufficient resources. The program will establish internal and external advisory committees to ensure optimal learning goals for the students in ADRD research. Participants will engage in research projects spanning epidemiological observational studies, lifestyle and medication clinical trials, data analyses of "big data" (including “omics” and medical chart data), digital health innovations, and basic science (animal, cellular/molecular, neural stem cell and human postmortem tissue systems studies). This hands-on experience will be complemented by exposure to data science and biostatistics through dedicated meetings with a program biostatistician, equipping students with basic yet practical analytical skills essential for addressing complex challenges in ADRD research. The program emphasizes the responsible conduct of research, including practices that enhance rigor and transparency in human subjects and animals research. Students will also participate in the ADRD Translational Work in Progress series, engaging in open discussions and critiques of scientific materials such as grant aims and hypothesis development. This interactive environment motivates critical thinking, collaboration, and scientific communication skills. Internal and External Advisory Committees, each including world-class researchers in neurodegeneration and ADRD, will meet annually to monitor program progress and provide recommendations for improvement. This oversight ensures alignment with the highest standards of mentorship while maximizing each student’s research experience. The program culminates in a symposium where trainees present their research findings, further refining their scientific communication skills. By exposing medical students to ADRD research early in their clinician careers, the program addresses the critical need for developing future physician-scientists dedicated to ADRD, a condition that disproportionately affects older adults, the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. population. The program aims to cultivate future leaders who will advance innovative research, ultimately promoting state-of-the-art, compassionate care for ADRD patients and improving health outcomes for the rapidly growing geriatric population.

NHLBI - National Heart Lung and Blood Institute

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in the United States, and heart failure (HF) rates in particular are escalating at alarming rates in the general population, with approximately one in four adults in the United States anticipated to develop HF in their lifetime. Today, HF affects an estimated 6.7 million American adults and is associated with a high risk for premature death, hospitalizations, and poorer quality of life. For the aging cohort of people with HIV (PWH)—who are living longer lives thanks to the advent of antiretroviral therapy (ART)—there is a well-established higher risk of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) driven by a higher prevalence of traditional and HIV-specific risk factors. Unfortunately, there is very limited research for HF in PWH, largely due to the scarcity of large longitudinal cohorts and the difficulties involved in reliably identifying HF cases. In one of the few studies on the topic, a large multicenter analysis from Kaiser Permanente (KP) demonstrated a 73% higher risk of developing HF in PWH compared with demographically matched people without HIV (PWoH). Thus, there is now an urgent need for a clear understanding of the underlying drivers of risk in PWH. To address critical uncertainties in the field—and ultimately to inform strategies for HF risk prediction and prevention among aging PWH—we propose a cohort study in three integrated health systems with an overarching goal to improve our understanding of contributors to the elevated HF risk in PWH. Our specific aims include: (1) comparing the impact of traditional and HIV-specific risk factors on the risk of incident HF among PWH and PWoH; (2) evaluating and refining the recently introduced American Heart Association Predicting Risk of CVD EVENTs in HF (PREVENT-HF) equations specifically for PWH; and (3) evaluating the impact of medications—including statins and ART classes—on the risk of HF among PWH. We plan to evaluate these aims using advanced biostatistical methods for the development, calibration, and validation of HF prediction models and applying causal inference techniques to evaluate medication effectiveness using observational data. The study will be conducted in three US healthcare delivery systems—KP Northern and Southern California and Mass General Brigham—where we anticipate a cohort of over 50,000 PWH and 10:1 matched PWoH from 2008–2025, with a highly sensitive approach for ascertainment of HF cases using a validated natural language processing algorithm. Study innovations include: (1) exceptional cohort of PWH and matched PWoH with comprehensive electronic health record data and validated HF outcomes; (2) first-of-its-kind analysis of the PREVENT-HF equations in PWH; and (3) use of advanced analytics to evaluate medication effectiveness for preventing HF. This study has great potential to generate critical evidence to guide HIV-specific HF risk prediction and prevention strategies, ultimately reducing HF incidence in PWH.

NIAID - National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases

Summary Despite significant progress in combating HIV, an effective vaccine is still elusive. On the other hand, passive immunization with broadly neutralizing antibodies (bnAbs) used in therapy or prophylaxis show promise in reducing in complementing current antiretroviral therapies (ART) and reducing the rate of new infections. However, more work is needed in understanding viral resistance to bnAbs and bnAb escape, as well as the effect of bnAbs on immune responses. Our overarching goal is to investigate the impact of the presence of the monoclonal bnAb VRC01 at HIV acquisition on viral diversity and host antibody responses. We hypothesize that if VRC01 prophylaxis has immunomodulatory effects on breakthrough infections, we would observe lower viral diversity at rebound after treatment interruption and/or earlier emergence of neutralizing autologous antibody responses in VRC01 recipients compared to placebo. We will address these questions by leveraging longitudinal data (anticipated and already acquired) from the Antibody Mediated Protection (AMP) trial HVTN 704 and the follow-up Analytic Treatment Interruption (ATI) trial HVTN 804, which enrolled study participants from Lima, Peru. These trials were designed to assess immunologic and virologic responses during ART interruption in AMP study participants who acquired HIV while receiving either placebo or VRC01 prophylaxis and started ART shortly after infection. This proposal addresses analyses not currently funded by the HIV Vaccine Trial Network (HVTN) that are nonetheless critical to understand the immunomodulatory function of passively administered bnAbs in both therapy and prophylaxis. Understanding the impact of VRC01 on autologous immune responses and intra-host viral evolution will inform ongoing and upcoming clinical trials testing bnAb therapy and prevention and help devise strategies to minimize bnAb escape while harnessing the potential benefit of immune enhancement. Analysis of high-throughput deep sequencing data will allow detection of rebound lineages at higher resolution compared to previous studies, especially transitory low-frequency lineages that may have otherwise gone undetected and could offer important clues on the selective pressures acting on the virus.

NIAID - National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases

Summary/Abstract: The advent of antiretroviral therapy (ART) has transformed HIV infection from a fatal disease into a manageable chronic condition. However, people living with HIV continue to experience comorbidities linked to persistent immune activation and inflammation. Unfortunately, there is not a functional vaccine for HIV, and recent efforts to achieve protection through passive immunization with broadly neutralizing anti-HIV IgG antibodies have not been successful. One promising avenue is anti-HIV IgA immunotherapy. Our recent published findings demonstrate that intrarectally applied anti-HIV IgA has an effect on the dissemination of HIV to lymph nodes following intra-rectal challenge. Elucidating the role of biochemical properties, such as glycosylation, on regulating the transport and effector functions of anti-HIV IgA remains poorly understood and requires further investigation. Our previous studies demonstrate that the glycosylation pattern of an anti-HIV IgG monoclonal antibody can influence its ability to disseminate across the blood brain barrier. In addition, we found that glycoengineered IgA isolated from colostrum exhibit altered transport properties. Taken together, these findings support our hypothesis that the glycosylation of IgA influences its cellular transport and can be strategically modified to enhance its transcytosis and function. In aim 1 we will characterize the glycosylation patterns of bulk IgA isolated from people living with HIV and compare them to non-HIV controls. We will then assess how these glycosylation profiles influence endothelial transport and how these changes correlate with viral load. In aim 2 we will clone anti-HIV monomeric IgA and express in 293 freestyle cells that have glycosl- transferases knocked down in order to create glycoengineered IgA. We will define the optimal glycosylation patterns that maximize endothelial transcytosis and antiviral effector functions. We have assembled a team of investigators uniquely equipped to carry out the aims of this grant.