Sanford Health awarded $4.25 million grant from NIH

Sanford Health awarded $4.25 million grant from NIH

Contact:
Jon Berg
Sanford Health Media Relations
605-366-2432 / [email protected]

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. - Sanford Health researcher, Scott Engel, Ph.D., along with his co-Principal Investigators, Kristine Steffen, Ph.D., Pharm.D. (NDSU) and Leslie Heinberg, Ph.D. (Cleveland Clinic), were recently awarded a $4.25 million grant from the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Engel's lab of researchers are devoted to investigating patient outcomes after bariatric surgery.

The focus of the grant is for a project called "Biobehavioral mechanistic Model of Alcohol Use Following Bariatric Surgery: The BREW ME Model." The study will investigate the relationship between metabolic and bariatric surgery and post-operative hazardous alcohol use. Research shows that patients who undergo bariatric surgery are at an increased risk for an alcohol use disorder.

"We know most people do quite well following bariatric surgery," said Dr. Engel. "There is a small, but meaningful group of bariatric surgery patients who experience poor outcomes, especially related to alcohol use after surgery. With this grant, we'll be able to extend our current work in two ways: 1) rather than simply getting self-reported alcohol intake, we will use objective measurement of alcohol consumption using a sensor worn on the wrist that gives us real-time measurement of alcohol use, and 2) we will examine the role of the gut microbiome in the development of hazardous alcohol use after surgery. These extensions of our work will help us to understand more accurately who develops hazardous alcohol use after surgery and why this happens."

The grant will support the lab through 2029. For more information about Sanford Research, visit research.sanfordhealth.org.

About Sanford Health
Sanford Health, the largest rural health system in the United States, is dedicated to transforming the health care experience and providing access to world-class health care in America's heartland. Headquartered in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, the organization serves 1.4 million patients and nearly 200,000 health plan members across 250,000 square miles. The integrated health system has 45 hospitals, 211 clinic locations, more than 160 Good Samaritan Society senior living centers, 2,900 Sanford physicians and advanced practice providers, 540 active clinical trials, and nine world clinic locations around the globe. Learn more about Sanford Health's commitment to shaping the future of rural health care across the lifespan at sanfordhealth.org or Sanford Health News.