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Cardiac Conversations Help Focus Research
Frazier brings genetics, nursing, epidemiology perspectives to research with heart disease patients
The 10 days Lorraine Frazier, D.S.N., spent engaged in cardiac conversation this past summer with the American Heart Association’s chosen few were nothing less than “life changing.”
As part of a select group of fellows attendi
Lorraine Frazier, D.S.N.
ng the 30th AHA Training Workshop in Cardiovascular Disease, Epidemiology and Prevention, Frazier left for Tahoe City, Calif., as an accomplished associate professor at The University of Texas School of Nursing at Houston.
But she returned as a researcher revving to do even more.
Frazier said she was so inspired by the AHA’s collective movement to combat “the silent killer” that she returned to Texas and immediately began work on a grant proposal to assist in her own efforts regarding cardiovascular disease.
The research will focus on the outcomes of people being treated for cardiovascular disease, specifically on inflammation markers and genes that predict future coronary events in these patients.
“The AHA seminar was really life changing,” Frazier said. “It provided me with a broad look at cardiovascular disease. The seminar emphasized the challenges of cardiovascular disease prevention across the lifespan, not just primary prevention.
“I came back ready to work.”
The AHA seminar, co-sponsored by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, was introduced to Frazier by Janet Meininger, Ph.D., the Lee and Joseph Jamail Distinguished Professor at the UT School of Nursing.
Meininger said she recommended Frazier for the seminar because she thought “her excellent background in clinical research would be further enhanced by knowledge of the epidemiology of cardiovascular disease.”
“As the recipient of a Mentored Patient-Oriented Research Career Development-K23 award from the National Institute of Nursing Research, Dr. Frazier is building the foundation for a long and productive research career,” Meininger said. “This was an ideal time for Dr. Frazier to further broaden the scope of her interdisciplinary endeavors and to interact with outstanding researchers in the field of cardiovascular epidemiology.”
James T. Willerson, M.D., president of the UT Health Science Center at Houston, recommended that Frazier be considered for the seminar, while describing her as a “strong clinician and scientist.”
“Her experience in the clinical area and her knowledge of clinical databases, sample repositories and ethical components of genetic research will bring an important perspective to the seminar,” Willerson wrote.
Frazier praised the seminar as an opportunity to network and to “see a bigger picture.”
“I can now e-mail someone from across the country and ask them a question or share an idea,” she said. “When you are researching, sometime you feel alone, and having someone to communicate with about your field is very important.”
Frazier’s background in cardiovascular research began with her bachelor’s degree in nursing from the University of Oklahoma. She later received a master’s degree and a doctorate at the UT School of Nursing.
Frazier recently completed a two-year postdoctoral fellowship in the Human Genetics Center at the UT School of Public Health at Houston, and she is project director of TexGen, a multi-institutional project that will result in a large-scale resource of clinical data and biological samplings of cardiovascular and cancer patients in the Texas Medical Center. Through the K-award, she has started a research pilot project on the genetics of inflammation and cardiovascular disease outcomes.
Frazier has a track record of involvement in programs that further the field of nursing. She sits on a task force of the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB), which promotes faculty development throughout the region for genetics curriculum material. Frazier’s role with the SREB, an organization that helps leaders in education and government work cooperatively to advance education, allows a chance to direct the attention of state leaders to key health issues.
In addition, Frazier, along with a team of individuals, was accepted into the Genetic Interdisciplinary Faculty Training (GIFT) program this year, a program designed to address the need for increased genetics content in graduate school health professions curricula. GIFT is operated through Duke University Medical Center and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Frazier’s team included Jennifer M. Hoskovec, a genetic counselor at the UT Medical School at Houston, among others.
Working with and being a part of a team is what Frazier enjoys most. She said she would like to be part of a team that discovers what environmental exposures cause additional cardiac complications in patients who already have heart disease.
“The hope is to provide data that could lead to testing of new therapeutic methods to improve the patients’ response to injury and infection,” she said. “That’s what my focus is – secondary prevention; discovering why some patients with heart disease may react to environmental stressors in a certain way that results in poor cardiovascular outcomes.
“Ultimately that’s what I care about and that’s what the patients with heart disease and their families care about.”
— By Erika E. Durham, Public Affairs