Dr. Carlton R. Cooper from the University of Delaware presents on racial health disparities research to an audience of students and faculty at Meharry Medical College
In April, the Meharry-Vanderbilt Student Alliance (MVSA), along with the Vanderbilt Alliance for Cultural Diversity in Research (ACDR) and the Meharry Graduate Student Association (GSA) hosted a seminar entitled “Race, Research, and You: Genomic Tools for Health Disparities Research”. The event featured Dr. Carlton Cooper, Assistant Professor of Biology, the University of Delaware and Dr. Dana Crawford, Assistant Professor, Vanderbilt Molecular Physiology & Biophysics Department and Vanderbilt Center for Human Genetics Research.
Download the podcast for Dr. Coopers talk
Download Dr. Cooper’s Powerpoint Presentation
Dr. Cooper kicked off the event with a sobering overview of the state of racial health disparities and related biomedical research. He argued that presently the most pressing and overlooked problem with the American health care system is the persistence of racial health disparities. Additionally, he stated that the health care reform debate of the previous year has highlighted the political and economic dimensions of this issue; however, it is increasingly clear that there is also a biological component to this problem. He discussed the controversial FDA approval of BiDBoil in 2005 as the first ‘race-specific drug’ and urged the medical and research communities to work towards greater enrollment of minorities in clinical trials. He also emphasized the importance of taking the initiative to integrate disparities research into already existing laboratory research programs. In this context, Dr. Cooper explained his work as the Community Outreach Coordinator for the University of Delaware’s Center for Translational Cancer Research, as well as his laboratory’s efforts to investigate the role of nitric oxide deficiency amongst African-Americans and its corresponding affect on TGF-beta signaling and prostate cancer progression.
Dr. Dana C. Crawford from Vanderbilt University discusses new techniques in human genetics research that can be applied to health disparities research.
Dr. Crawford followed up with a tutorial on Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs) and their important role in health disparities research. She gave an introduction to the terminology used in SNP studies and a technical guide to using a number of web-based tools for SNPs-research. One of the tools she highlighted was the International HapMap Project. The project is an attempt to catalog the geographic diversity in the human genome and distill that information in a way that is helpful for studying genetic associations with disease.
Download Dr. Crawford’s podcast
Download Dr. Crawford’s Powerpoint Presentation
Vanderbilt Cancer Biology graduate student Adam Bissonnette, who attended the seminar “found it very informative and useful” as it made him more cognizant of how biomedical research is an integral part of addressing health disparities. The most important take home message from the whole event may have been Dr. Cooper’s comment that, ‘this isn’t just about minorities; it’s about all of us’. Developing treatment strategies that help close the health disparities gap that minorities face will help everyone who has a less common form of any given disease.