{"id":7082,"date":"2016-07-06T08:56:51","date_gmt":"2016-07-06T12:56:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/?p=7082"},"modified":"2016-08-03T09:48:08","modified_gmt":"2016-08-03T13:48:08","slug":"alexandra-howell-receives-veterans-affairs-network-directors-icare-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/2016\/alexandra-howell-receives-veterans-affairs-network-directors-icare-award\/","title":{"rendered":"Alexandra Howell Receives Veterans Affairs Network Director\u2019s ICARE Award"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alexandra Howell, PhD, a research biologist at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center (VAMC) in White River Junction, VT, and a professor of medicine and of microbiology\/immunology at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, has received the VISN 1 Network Director\u2019s ICARE award<\/a> from the VA New England Healthcare System.<\/p>\n

Each year, directors from the VA Health System\u2019s integrated regional service networks across the country recognize outstanding contributions from employees who best demonstrate the VA\u2019s core values of: integrity, commitment, advocacy, respect, and excellence (ICARE).<\/p>\n

Howell\u2019s award for \u201cexceptional demonstration of the ICARE value of Commitment,\u201d is one of the very few ever given to a researcher. It was presented to her by the VA\u2019s regional and local leadership for her \u201cinnovative, nationally recognized research in HIV\/AIDS, bringing together clinical and bench researchers, mentoring many students and junior scientists, and building an active and consistently well-funded research program at the White River Junction VAMC.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt means a lot to receive this award, especially at a time when grant funding is so difficult to secure and maintain,\u201d says Howell. \u201cIt acknowledges all of the hard work that we\u2019ve done as a team, and it recognizes how important research (along with patient care and education) is to what the VA does.\u201d<\/p>\n

Working with Geisel colleagues Susan Eszterhas, PhD, an assistant professor of microbiology\/immunology, and Bryan Luikart, PhD, an assistant professor of physiology and neurobiology, Howell is developing a novel therapeutic approach\u2014utilizing a technique known as CRISPR\/Cas and delivery tools called lentiviral vectors\u2014to permanently eliminate HIV from infected cells.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat many people may not realize is that when HIV infects a cell, it inserts its genome into a chromosome and it\u2019s stuck there for the life of the cell,\u201d explains Howell, who along with Eszterhas and Luikart has two patents pending on the project. \u201cAll of the drugs that HIV-infected patients take can stop the virus from making copies of itself, but these drugs don\u2019t rid the part of the virus that\u2019s stuck in the chromosome, which will begin replicating again if the drugs are taken away.\u201d<\/p>\n

These anti-HIV drugs can cause liver and kidney toxicity, require patients to be constantly monitored, and are very expensive, says Howell. \u201cOur goal is to establish a reliable delivery process for an RNA molecule and an enzyme\u2014the two components of CRISPR\/Cas\u2014that have been shown in the lab to be effective in excising the HIV virus from infected cells, and that also protect healthy cells from becoming infected.\u201d<\/p>\n

Howell established the HIV Core Research Facility at the White River Junction VAMC in 1989, and has been a VA Basic Laboratory Research and Development Merit Review-funded research scientist since 1993. She has served as principal investigator, co-investigator, consultant, and mentor on a number of significant projects in the area of HIV and immunology, several of which have received funding from the National Institutes of Health, including a current small business innovation grant with Celdara Medical.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alexandra Howell, PhD, a research biologist at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in White River Junction, VT, and a professor at Geisel, has received the VISN 1 Network Director\u2019s ICARE award from the VA New England Healthcare System.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":7083,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[679,1,8],"tags":[181,320,380],"class_list":["post-7082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-insider","category-news","category-research","tag-hiv","tag-research-2","tag-veterans-health-administration","author-26"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2016\/07\/Howell-Eszterhas.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4r3h1-1Qe","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7082"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7082\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7086,"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7082\/revisions\/7086"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}