Patient-Oriented Research and Mentoring in Genitourinary Aging
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REVISED Project Summary This K24 midcareer investigator award renewal will allow Dr. Alison Huang, Professor of Medicine and Urology, Director of Research in the Division of General Internal Medicine, and Director of the Women’s Health Clinical Research Center at the University of California San Francisco, to deepen and expand her patient-oriented research and mentoring activities on genitourinary aging and its implications for Alzheimer’s disease risk and prevention. Dr. Huang is an internal medicine physician, clinical epidemiologist, and clinical trialist dedicated to advancing scientific understanding and improving management of the impact of aging and menopause on genitourinary health, particularly in women. She leads a multidisciplinary team of patient-oriented scientists in investigating shared factors underlying relationships between aging-associated genitourinary conditions and geriatric syndromes such as cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s disease, as well as conducting clinical trials of strategies to manage these conditions across the aging spectrum. In her first K24 cycle, Dr. Huang has successfully mentored many junior clinician investigators who have published high-impact research, obtained federally funded research awards, and progressed in careers relevant to patient-oriented research in aging. She has engaged her mentees in the design, conduct, and outcomes analyses for her NIH-funded randomized trials to test behavioral, pharmacologic, and integrative treatment strategies for common but understudied aging-associated syndromes such as urinary incontinence and menopausal symptoms. In the past 5 years, her work has influenced national practice guidelines about management of postmenopausal and genitourinary health in older women and led to national recognition from scientific or professional societies for both her and her mentees. For this renewal, Dr. Huang will expand her mentoring of trainees from multiple clinical backgrounds in conducting interdisciplinary genitourinary aging research, including interventional and epidemiological studies addressing the impact of these conditions on mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s disease. She will leverage ongoing projects providing a rich repository of data on sleep-related, psychological, and cognitive contributors and consequences for nocturnal urinary symptoms in older women. She will expand initiatives launched in her first K24 cycle to guide early-stage investigators in designing and conducting randomized clinical trials in older adults. She will also expand a formal mentoring program with plans for recruiting, developing, and evaluating new mentees from varied clinical backgrounds. These plans will make full use of the rich research training environment at her institution and leverage leadership positions that she holds in NIH training programs and national organizations to guide and support mentees with the potential to become leaders of research at the intersection of genitourinary health and cognitive aging.
