Jacqueline Harris, MD and Neil Patel, MD, third-year residents at the UC San Francisco Department of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery (UCSF OHNS), were announced as 2021 awardees of the 2021 Microbiome Research Program. They each received a trainee pilot award which grants them $10,000 for a one-year project.
Dr. Harris' project will center on establishing the microbiome of eustachian tube dysfunction and allergic rhinitis, working closely with Jeffrey Sharon, MD, principal investigator (PI) and UCSF OHNS faculty member. Dr. Patel's project will focus on the impact of probiotic sinus rinse on the microbiome of the post-radiation nasopharynx of patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma. Dr. Patel will work with Patricia Loftus, MD, PI and UCSF OHNS faculty member.
The Benioff Center for Microbiome Medicine (BCMM) seeks to advance the field of microbiome research at UCSF by funding proposals that develop novel tools, promote understanding of microbial-host interactions, and foster translational research. Funds are awarded to innovative proposals intended to explore novel concepts or hypotheses, expand or integrate microbiota data into a pre-existing study, analyze publicly available data to address a critical hypothesis, develop a new analytical or computational tool, develop or expand center resources and support analyses of microbial strains/cellular interactions of interest to the field.
Congratulations to Drs. Harris and Patel. The department is proud of your award, and we look forward to seeing the results of your year-long projects.
