WILMINGTON, N.C. (WECT) – Novant Health announced on Aug. 20 that a $1 million investment is being made to launch two physician-led clinical research efforts in NC.

“The pair of $500,000 research grants focusing on urgent health needs marks the largest single investment awarded by the collaborative involving Novant Health, UNC Health and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine. The funding will launch joint Novant Health and UNC School of Medicine studies focusing on treatments for patients with pediatric asthma and advanced prostate cancer,” a Novant Health announcement states.

Novant Health NHRMC and UNC Children’s teams will be linked to study how children with asthma in southeastern NC are hospitalized at higher rates than the statewide average. The project is led by Dr. Michelle Hernandez, Dr. Marzena Krawiec and Dr. Jack Sharp.

The second project will focus on men with prostate cancer that has spread to other parents of the body, trying to understand how new imaging technologies nad focused radiation could be used to improve cancer outcomes. The physicians will work on identifying sites of disease that are no longer responding well to anti-hormone therapy to ablate the sites with focused radiation with the goal of better controlling the disease.

“This initiative, the Prostate-specific Membrane Antigen Positron Emission Tomography (PSMA-PET) Directed Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy in Oligometastatic Castrate-Resistant Prostate Cancer Project, is led by Dr. Shivani Sud, Dr. Michael Papagikos, Dr. Matthew Milowsky, Dr. Steven Rowe and Dr. Neil Wijetunga,” the announcement continues.

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