Two multistate research teams - one investigating "Cardiometabolic Risk and Aggressive Prostate Cancer" and the other investigating "The Role of Extracellular Vesicles in HPV-Induced HIV Pathogenesis" have won the 2019 CORNET Awards.

The winning teams were composed of researchers from the University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC), Tulane University, and the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC).

The CORNET Awards were created 2016 to foster collaborative partnerships between researchers in Memphis and various regional and global academic institutions, and industry partners. The purpose of the awards is to give seed funding, up to $75,000 per project, to collaborative research teams working to combat regional health inequities faced by those living in the Delta South.

The 2019 CORNET Awards in Health Disparities Research winners and their project titles are:

"Role of Extracellular Vesicles in HPV-Induced HIV Pathogenesis" by Santosh Kumar, PhD, (UTHSC); Wendy Likes, PhD, DNSc, APRN-Bc, FAANP, (UTHSC); Crystal Walker, PhD, DNP, FNP-C, (UTHSC); Carolann Risley, PhD, MSN, (UMMC); and William Robinson, MD, (Tulane). The project aims to investigate the biological interactions between HPV and HIV infected cells in an effort to address how and why HIV/AIDS disproportionately affects African Americans, especially in the southern Delta region.

"Cardiometabolic Risk and Aggressive Prostate Cancer in African-American and White Men: The Delta Cancer Research Consortium" by Jay H. Fowke, PhD, MPH, MS, (UTHSC); Lydia A. Bazzano, MD, PhD, FACP, FACN, CIP, (Tulane); and Christian Gomez, PhD, (UMMC). This project aims to determine the link between cardiometabolic risk factors and the disproportionate rate of prostate cancer in African American men, and to develop methods to harmonize findings across studies.