Incyte announced that Vanderbilt University and MGH Institute of Health Professions have been chosen as the recipients of the 2023 Incyte Ingenuity Awards in graft-versus-host disease (GVHD). This award program aims to support the U.S. GVHD community by funding two innovative initiatives annually that address specific needs of people impacted by GVHD, including patients and their providers. Applications for the 2023 Incyte Ingenuity Awards in GVHD were evaluated by an independent judging panel consisting of five GVHD community advocates and experts.
Vanderbilt University, in collaboration with Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s Department of Dermatology, plans to leverage modern image processing technology and machine learning for its Smart Help for GVHD Assessment and Tracking project to develop an app that can convert conventional smartphone images into ones that accurately detect and quantify erythema, an abnormal redness of the skin which can be a biomarker for mortality in patients with chronic GVHD, in a range of skin types. This app would allow patients to effectively track their disease and detect changes in a remote setting.
The MGH Institute of Health Professions’ Supportive Care Intervention to Address Employment Concerns for Patients Living with Chronic GVHD project aims to develop a work support intervention program designed to identify and address the employment challenges people living with GVHD face. In collaboration with MGH Cancer Center, the goal of this project is to become the first evidence-based intervention to help people with GVHD to address employment challenges and subsequently improve quality of life.
“We’re excited to recognize two outstanding healthcare organizations as the recipients of the Incyte Ingenuity Awards in GVHD. These projects aim to support people with GVHD by seeking solutions that may ease two significant impacts the disease may introduce to their post-transplant lives,” said Barry Flannelly, Pharm. D., Executive Vice President and General Manager North America, Incyte. “We are eager to learn how these initiatives from Vanderbilt University and MGH may make a difference for people living with GVHD.”
The independent judging panel included the following GVHD experts and advocates: Barbara Abernathy, Ph.D., LMHC, President and CEO, Pediatric Oncology Support Team, Inc., Adjunct Faculty, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine and Florida Atlantic University; Meredith Cowden, M.A., LPCC-S, Director of Patient Advocacy, Meredith A. Cowden Foundation; Alice Houk, Senior Director, Patient and Professional Services, Aplastic Anemia & MDS International Foundation; Areej El-Jawahri, M.D., Director, Blood and Marrow Transplant Survivorship Program, Associate Director, Cancer Outcomes Research and Education Program, Director, Digital Health at MGH; Doris Ponce, M.D., Associate Professor of Medicine and GVHD Program Director, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. To maintain the integrity of the judging process, any judge affiliated with an applying organization was precluded from the review of that organization’s application.
To read more about these winning initiatives, and for more information about the Incyte Ingenuity Awards in GVHD, visit https://www.incyteingenuityawards.com/gvhd/.
