Emory University School of Medicine’s Imagine, Innovate and Impact (I3) Nexus Awards are grants awarded to spur interdisciplinary research projects that have the potential to impact health or generate biomedical knowledge.

This award provides seed money to fundamental biological and translational investigators for obtaining data to develop external collaborative funding applications, and to investigators who may not otherwise engage in multi- and interdisciplinary research.

Gari Clifford, professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Emory University and Georgia Tech, and chair of the Biomedical Informatics Department in the Emory University School of Medicine, is a member of a three person I3 funded team pursuing the feasibility of mHealth blood pressure monitoring in postpartum women.

Chethan Pandarinath, assistant professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Emory University and Georgia Tech, is a member of a two person I3 funded team researching striatal pathophysiology underlying dystonia. This same team, Pandarinath and Ellen Ness, professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Chemical Biology at the Emory School of Medicine, are also recipients of a Emory-Udall Parkinson's Disease Center Pilot Grant.

Ness is the principal investigator and Pandarinath is the co-principal investigator on both projects.

A complete list of the five awarded I3 Nexus projects in 2020 is listed below.

Feasibility of mHealth Blood Pressure Monitoring in Postpartum Women

• Sheree Boulet, DrPH, Assistant Professor, Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics, Emory School of Medicine
• Gari Clifford, Ph.D., Chair, Biomedical Informatics, Emory University School of Medicine
• Marissa Platner, M.D., Assistant Professor Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics Emory University School of Medicine

Striatal Pathophysiology Underlying Dystonia

• Ellen Hess, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Pharmacology and Chemical Biology, Emory School of Medicine
• Chethan Pandarinath, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering

Broad-spectrum Antivirals to Combat Influenza, Dengue and Zika Viruses

• Joshy Jacob, Ph.D., Professor, Microbiology and Immunology, Emory School of Medicine
• Periasamy Selvaraj, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Pathology, Emory School of Medicine

Deep Learning Approach Towards Identifying Disease-relevant Variants in Alzheimer’s Disease

• Peng Jin, Ph.D., Professor, Human Genetics, Emory School of Medicine
• Thomas Wingo, M.D., Associate Professor of Neurology, Emory University School of Medicine

Impact of HIV on Lung Immune Responses to Mycobacterium Tuberculosis Infection

• Jyothi Rengarajan, Associate Professor, Department of Medicine, Emory School of Medicine
• Sushma Cribbs, M.D., M.Sc., Associate Professor, Division of Pulmonary, Allergy, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine, Department of Medicine, Emory School of Medicine