New grants open doors for mental health care, aging research, and poetry

“Many adolescents avoid seeking mental health support in school because of the stigma surrounding it,” says Gladstone. “We’re adapting the CATCH-IT model in two ways. One, we’re incorporating training for teachers on reducing mental health stigma and increasing classroom support. And two, we’re allowing all students, not only those experiencing symptoms, to participate.”

If the Brown researchers find their model to be more effective, they’ll be poised to distribute it to thousands of adolescents in the region, broadly addressing the youth mental health crisis.

2. Advancing research on genome instability and age-related disease

With a $550,000 Scholars Award from the Rita Allen Foundation, Martin Taylor, assistant professor of pathology and laboratory medicine, is advancing research on how repetitive DNA elements contribute to aging and disease.

While genes make up only a small portion of the human genome, nearly half of the genome consists of repetitive sequences known as transposons. Taylor’s research focuses on the LINE-1 transposon elements—virus-like mobile DNA segments that can copy and insert themselves throughout the genome, sometimes disrupting normal cellular function.

“Our healthy tissues are very good at keeping LINE-1 silenced, but pervasively in diseases of aging, and especially in cancer, LINE-1 repression breaks down, resulting in multiple negative consequences,” explains Taylor. “Essentially, it's like we have a viral infection that is part of our DNA, and our failure to fully repress it contributes to disease.”

His lab is studying how LINE-1 activity may contribute to inflammation, neurodegeneration, cancer, and autoimmune disorders. By combining molecular biology, genomics, biochemistry, computational analysis, and repurposing safe HIV drugs that they have shown also inhibit LINE-1, the team aims to uncover how inflammation and genome instability affect long-term health in order to develop new strategies for diagnosis, prevention, and therapy.

The Rita Allen Foundation supports early-stage discoveries that will ultimately improve human health. Their Scholars Award provides flexible funding that enables early-career biomedical researchers to pursue innovative, high-impact projects.

3. Expanding access to contemporary African poetry 

A $150,000 grant from the Hawthornden Foundation is supporting the continued development of the African Poetry Book Fund (APBF), which is led by Kwame Dawes, professor of literary arts, and Lorna Dawes, librarian at Brown’s Center for Library Exploration and Research. 

The APBF’s mission is to advance the development and publication of the poetic arts of Africa. Since 2012, they have promoted book series, contests, workshops, and seminars, and collaborated with partners from publishers to festivals to conferences to universities.

The Hawthornden grant will support the APBF with the printing and publication of books and chapbooks by contemporary African poets. It will also expand the project’s reach and accessibility through both an audiobook project and a newsletter initiative.

“I believe poets are the chroniclers of the sentiment of their time,” said Kwame Dawes, who also leads the African Poetry Digital Portal. “If you didn’t know anything about Uganda, but then you read some poems from Uganda, it would unlock your empathy and imagination. You’d immediately understand something about the way people there exist and feel. If we make more spaces for African poets, we can understand more about human existence.”