An NIH research grant and a presidential visit for Josiane Broussard

On April 20, Branco Weiss Alumna Josiane Broussard had the honor of meeting with the Frist Lady of the United States of America, Dr. Jill Biden, PhD. Dr. Broussard took part in a roundtable discussion with the first lady at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, where she had the opportunity to present to Biden her research of the link between sleep and health, specifically diabetes. Biden’s visit was part of the White House Initiative on Women’s Health. President Joe Biden and Dr. Jill Biden launched the initiative last November with the goal of changing how the U.S. approaches and funds research on women’s health.

In other news, Josiane Broussard recently won a federal research grant (R01) from the NIH for her project titled “Impact of circulating and tissue-specific lipids on vascular function and insulin sensitivity in chronic night shift workers”. People who experience repeated bouts of circadian misalignment, such as shift workers, are at higher risk of developing cardiovascular disease and Type 2 diabetes compared to daytime workers; however, there have been few attempts to develop strategies to improve health in shift workers. The goal of Dr. Broussard’s project is to translate the strategy of timed eating to a population of free-living shift workers and to identify a non-pharmacological strategy that could mitigate cardiometabolic disease risk in this population. The grant runs over five years with a budget of 500’000 US-Dollar per year.

Watch the roundtable discussion with Jill Biden on 9News

See the project details of the R01 grant from NIH