HJNO May/Jun 2021

38 MAY / JUN 2021  I  HEALTHCARE JOURNAL OF NEW ORLEANS   Healthcare Briefs water bottle filling stations. Lawmakers will have a chance to hear and vote on the bill during the 2021 Louisiana Regular Legislative Session, which convenes April 12. “Water access is hugely important for a child’s overall health, but for many Louisiana children, school is the only place where they can depend on a nutritious meal and clean water,” said Pierre. “I can’t think of a better time to focus on basic needs that support overall health and reduce the spread of germs.” Homer Williams, MD, Joins Washington Parish Community Health Center Homer Williams, MD, joined the Washington Parish Community Health Center’s care team. Williams is a board-certified family physician and has been practicing for more than 30 years in the areas of southwest and central Louisiana. Williams is a graduate of the University of Mississippi Med- ical Center. He joins the care team of Michael Henke, MD, and Tim Martin, NP, at the center, located in Bogalusa, Louisiana. Crescent Care of NO Receives Grant to Implement Telehealth Solutions Last year, Centene, the parent company of Lou- isiana Healthcare Connections, and the National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC) formed the Medicaid Telehealth Part- nership to increase access to care among Feder- ally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. As part of the part- nership, Louisiana Healthcare Connections announced that it has awarded the providers below with a financial grant to help them ramp up their capacity to provide telehealth solutions: • Acadiana Concern for AIDS of Lafayette. • Capitol City Family Health of Baton Rouge. • CommuniHealth Services of Bastrop. • Crescent Care of New Orleans. • Odyssey House of New Orleans. • Southeast Community Health of Zachary. • Start Corporation of Houma. • Iberia Comprehensive of New Iberia. Leveraging the grant, these healthcare provid- ers will purchase new equipment, upgrade infra- structure and provide training, to name a few. “The past year has drawn attention to the importance of telehealth solutions, as communi- ties struggled to conveniently access healthcare services. This has also shined a light on the strug- gle of people in rural areas with limited healthcare providers,” said Louisiana Healthcare Connec- tions’ Plan President and CEO Jamie Schlott- man. “ $1MGrant Funds Research on Potential Rx for Prostate Cancer The Biomedical Laboratory Research and Development Branch of the Veterans Adminis- tration (VA) has awarded Hari Koul, PhD, profes- sor and interim chairman of the Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology at LSU Health New Orleans School of Medicine, $1,056,317 in research funding over four years to help find new treatments for prostate cancer. Koul is also a research scientist at the New Orleans VA Med- ical Center. According to National Cancer Institute esti- mates, about 200,000 new cases of prostate can- cer were diagnosed in the United States in 2020, with more than 33,000 deaths. As long as can- cer remains in the prostate gland, many treat- ments, including surgery and radiation therapy, are effective. When prostate cancer spreads, hor- mone therapy is the standard treatment. “Despite an initial response, almost all men fail current treatments and develop Castrate Resis- tant Prostate Cancer,” said Koul. “To date, we do not have a curative treatment for these can- cer patients. There is an urgent yet unmet need for the identification and characterization of new targets for therapeutic intervention. Our goal is to address this vital knowledge gap by characterizing the role of Prostate Derived ETS Transcription Factor (PDEF) in prostate cancer, thereby reducing deaths.” Transcription factors copy or transcribe genetic instructions from DNA that is confined to the cell’s nucleus to a messenger RNA (mRNA) molecule. The mRNA molecule then translates and trans- mits the information to the parts of the cell that can make proteins. Many biological functions are performed by proteins. PDEF appears to play a key role in the transcription of instructions to prostate cancer cells. Koul, who is also a professor of urology and associate director of the Stanley S. Scott Can- cer Center at LSU Health New Orleans, and his research team previously discovered a link between loss of PDEF and advanced prostate cancer. They also noted that prostate cancers that fail hormone therapy have decreased or unde- tectable levels of PDEF. They found that when they increased levels of PDEF in prostate cancer cells in the pre-clinical setting, these cancer cells were no longer able to form metastasis or spread outside of the prostate gland. Focusing on PDEF as a therapeutic target is a groundbreaking conceptual advancement, which holds translational promise in identifying new treatments for Castrate Resistant Prostate Cancer (CPRC). “Our goals are to broaden our understand- ing of the molecular mechanisms by which PDEF affects prostate cancer cells and test new treat- ments for CRPC,” said Koul. “The accomplish- ment of these goals should substantially advance our understanding of prostate cancer progres- sion, therapy resistance and metastasis. This research is likely to have a significant impact on saving lives of men suffering from prostate can- cer by characterizing novel targets for interven- tion in the immediate future.” Tulane Study Looks at Effectiveness of Telehealth Therapy During Pandemic When COVID-19 was declared a global pan- demic in March 2020, the Early Psychosis Inter- vention Clinic in New Orleans (EPIC-NOLA) quickly transitioned to virtual mental health for an especially vulnerable population of teens and young adults. Homer Williams, MD