Publications & Projects

The aim of this project is to comprehensively characterize cardio-metabolic, cognitive, genomic, and epigenetic effects of sleep insufficiency in a controlled laboratory setting. My lab assist with the collection and sorting of blood samples for DNA methylation and whole-genome expression analysis. For this study, we are further investigating specific type of cells including monocytes and lymphocytes.

The overarching goal is to test the hypothesis of intergenerational transmission of trauma by measuring cellular aging in both mothers and children, members of the Female Growth and Development Study. Specifically, we are testing telomere length in mothers exposed to sexual abuse, control mothers, and their children.

The goal of this project is to identify genomic mechanisms involved in young adults’ response to stress, as moderated by early adversity. Specifically, we are testing whether individuals exposed to early-life adversity show dysregulated changes in gene expression in response to a well-established laboratory stressor, compared with a no-stress condition, and compared with individuals without exposure to early adversity.

PRISM is a pilot project involves studying how parents control their emotions, behaviors, and heart rate when disciplining their preschoolers. This project is designed to test methods for the capture of biological data using wearable technology in the home and using a phone app to collect information on discipline and stress. Our interest is in understanding how parents regulate themselves while disciplining their children so that we may learn how to better intervene with parents to reduce stress and prevent harsh discipline and physical abuse of children.

The SAFE-T Center was created in 2016, with support from the U.S. Department of Justice, Office for Victims of Crime. The mission of the Center is to partner with underserved communities in Pennsylvania to enhance compassionate, high-quality care for sexual assault victims. The Center provides access to expert mentoring, quality assurance, education and live examination consultation for victims of sexual assault in underserved and rural areas. The goals of the project are to enhance access to high-quality care for victims of assault and to demonstrate the effectiveness of a statewide model to support forensic nurses to deliver care in underserved communities.  

Recent research on the etiology of psychiatric disorders suggests that child maltreatment affects a circumscribed set of centralized risk mechanisms, known as transdiagnostic mechanisms, responsible for the increased incidences of multiple psychiatric disorders in this population. This project is testing the feasibility and initial efficacy of delivering individual components to alter unique transdiagnostic mechanisms following an act of child maltreatment to optimize intervention effects and reduce the incidences of multiple psychiatric disorders.

LEARS is a genetic case-control association study (Shenk, PI: KL2TR000078) examining the genetic and epigenetic mechanisms associated with the onset of psychiatric disorders in the child maltreatment population. Children between the ages of 8 and 15 years of age who have experienced substantiated child maltreatment participated in this study. Biospecimens (oral fluid, buccal swab) collected in this study are being used to generate estimates of variation in DNA and DNA methylation to predict the course and severity of psychiatric symptoms and diagnoses obtained from a structured psychiatric interview. Results from this study will provide insight into the genetic, epigenetic, and psychological contributions for these disorders in the child maltreatment population so that interventions targeting these processes can be developed or applied more effectively.

CMT32 Fellows would have the opportunity to examine a variety of epigenetic age acceleration estimates and their relation to a host of psychiatric disorders and symptom severity with the existing data collected in this project.

eCAP (Shenk, PI; O’Donnell, Sliwinski, Ram, and Noll, Co-I’s) is supported by an NIH award (R01AG059682) examining the impact of child maltreatment on epigenetic age acceleration, a cross-tissue index of the biological aging of cells that is derived from DNA methylation across the genome and has added explanatory power of adulthood health beyond chronological age. This project will first examine epigenetic age acceleration and its relation to mid-life cognitive function in the Female Growth and Development Study (FGDS), a 30-year prospective cohort study of the long-term effects of childhood sexual abuse. The FGDS cohort also provides an unprecedented opportunity to test the mediational properties of glucocorticoid remodeling occurring over the 20 years following exposure to substantiated child sexual abuse on epigenetic age acceleration as well as the risks associated with epigenetic age acceleration and a comprehensive assessment of cognitive function at mid-life. Once statistical models of epigenetic age acceleration and cognitive outcomes are developed using data from the FGDS discovery cohort, they will be exported for replication in independent, international cohorts to extend models to more diverse samples, including older ages and alternative cognitive outcomes (e.g. mild cognitive impairment). Results will inform precision-based efforts at preventing, delaying, or reversing the onset of various cognitive aging outcomes across different points of the lifespan.

CMT32 Fellows have the opportunity to examine a variety of epigenetic age acceleration estimates and their relation to a host of developmental and cognitive function outcomes with the existing data collected in this project

Variation in the significance and magnitude of effect size estimates reported across prospective studies has led to replication failures and the weakening of causal inferences about the long-term health effects of child maltreatment. Contamination, or the presence of child maltreatment in comparison conditions, truncates effect size magnitudes and increases Type II errors that lead to replication failures. This project is researching the optimal methods for controlling contamination in child maltreatment research with the Longitudinal Studies of Child Abuse and Neglect (LONGSCAN; N=1354) dataset, a multi-site, multi-wave nationally representative prospective cohort of child maltreatment. Results will help minimize replication failures in future child maltreatment research while generating reproducible effect size estimates across outcomes.