Assistant Professor Philip Empey, PharmD, PhD is the co-investigator with primary investigator Steven Reis, MD for their research titled Precision Approach to HealthCare enrollment Site (PA CARES) sponsored by NIH. This project will engage urban, suburban, and rural western Pennsylvanians in the Precision Medicine Institute through the creation of a multimedia, human-centered design-based storytelling campaign; pilot novel recruitment strategies and locations; and recruit 10,000 diverse participants and complete enrollment at 5 geographically dispersed centers in UPMC points of services spanning 29 counties in upper Appalachia. Empey is also collaborating with a multidisciplinary team at the Pitt’s Safar Center for Resuscitation Research and led by the University of Washington. This NIH-funded grant titled Randomized Clinical Trial of Sodium Nitrite for Out of Hospital Cardiac Arrest is a randomized placebo controlled trial of nitrite therapy administered during CPR after out of hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA). In the first phase the team will establish the dose required to achieve a 10 uM plasma level and in the second phase 1000 OHCA patients will be randomized 1:1 to this dose of nitrite vs vehicle control with the primary clinical endpoint being survival to hospital admission.
