Status: Available
Intern:
Faculty Name: smith-giri-md-mhs
Primary Faculty Appointment: UAB
UAB/HA Department: Division of Hematology/Oncology; Department of Medicine
Campus Address: 1600 7th Ave S, Lowder500
Telephone Number: (205) 638-2120
Email: smithgiri@uabmc.edu or Click to Send E-Mail
For how many summers have you served as a preceptor: 0
CCC Research Area: Cancer Control & Population Science
Number of hours per week that the preceptor will personally supervise or work with the intern: 2
Other faculty, staff, or graduate students who may help to supervise the intern:
1. Deanna Clark dclark@peds.uab.edu
2. Grant Williams grwilliams@uabmc.edu
Title of Project: 36SG – Evaluation of Body Composition among older adults with lymphoid neoplasms
Project Description:
Emerging data from our group and others have shown that differences in body composition can explain the heterogeneity in clinical outcomes among older adults with cancer with similar chronologic age. In 2019, we started a prospective registry of older adults 60 years and older with hematologic cancer treated at UAB. The purpose of this project to use routinely collected imaging data (CT or PET images) to analyze the body composition of patients with lymphoid neoplasms receiving care at UAB to a) document the variation in body composition in terms of muscle and adipose tissue compartments b) Understand its association with frailty, toxicities and survival by linking this data to our prospective registry. For this, we will use a licensed software (Slice-O-Matic v5.0) and use validated segmentation methods. Abundant training materials will be provided for the students to learn this software.
Project Status: Already up and running
Location of Project: Birmingham, AL (UAB)
Proposed Start Date: May 15, 2021
Proposed End Date: August 15, 2021
Expected work schedule for intern: Flexible, intern can largely set his or her own schedule (as for students who are instructed how to proceed and are permitted to work independently with weekly guidance) and should contribute full-time effort.
Number of days that the student will be expected to come physically to UAB:
0 – project will be fully virtual except for the required in-person checkpoint visits
Category of Project: Clinical (Patient Care) Research
Cancer topic: Lymphoma, Survivorship, Multiple Cancer Sites
Does this project involve human subjects: Yes
Does this project involve animal subjects: No
Duty:
1.
Using a self-guided learning using documents/tutorial videos/demonstration sessions, the student will use the first 2-3 weeks to get familiar with the Slice-O-Matics software and the accompanying ABACS semi-automation module. Software license will be provided at project initiation.
2.
Maintain a database in excel regarding the patient identification, and demographic characteristics of patients with available imaging and those whose imaging could be analyzed, along with output data including Skeletal Muscle Index, Subcutaneous and Visceral Adipose Tissue and Skeletal Muscle Density.
3.
Conduct basic descriptive analysis of the collected body composition data and prepare an abstract for poster presentation (preferred but not required)
Preceptor will provide intern with access to the following: Software access
Likelihood that intern will be included as an author on one or more publications related to this summer research project: Very likely
Areas in which the ideal candidates will have experience: Scientific Writing Skills, Statistics and Data Management, basic knowledge
