You recently joined the Russia ARCH research team. How did that come about and how is this research different than other studies or teams you\u2019ve been involved with?<\/strong><\/p>\nThis opportunity came about primarily because of the infrastructure that Jeffrey, Matt, Debbie, and the whole URBAN ARCH team had already built. I had also been learning more at scientific meetings, specifically the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco, about cytisine. This medicine is chemically very similar to varenicline as it\u2019s a partial nicotinic agonist, but it has a couple of distinguishing properties as well. Cytisine is generally better tolerated by patients and doesn\u2019t have as many side effects, but it\u2019s also very inexpensive. Additionally, there is evidence that as a partial nicotinic agonist, it could have efficacy for alcohol reduction. For a while I had been thinking about how to design a cytisine trial which could address both smoking and alcohol, and as I was formulating trial ideas, the evidence for partial nicotinic agonists to reduce alcohol consumption was mounting. By the time we had the opportunity last year, the conditions were all there for looking at cytisine in this vulnerable group of smokers.<\/p>\n
The study population is another unique element. These participants are burdened by substance use, such as alcohol and opioids, as well as very high depression rates. I\u2019ve dealt with that before in U.S. populations, but this group is more challenging simply due to the magnitude of everything they\u2019re dealing with. I also have not run a study abroad before. It\u2019s been wonderful to partner with the Russian team as well as U.S. members of URBAN ARCH, and I\u2019m hoping to travel to Russia on the next trip. So for me what\u2019s most exciting is that we\u2019re testing a very inexpensive, potentially efficacious medicine that could have a positive impact simultaneously on two really important outcomes (alcohol and smoking) that matter for people living with HIV. Globally speaking, this is also a goal for low and middle income countries in general.<\/p>\n
Your husband, Matthew Freiberg, is one of the PIs with you on the St PETER HIV study. What is it like working with him?
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\nEven if he weren\u2019t my husband, I would love working with Matt because he\u2019s such a strong collaborator. This study is unique because we have 3 PIs, but it\u2019s been awesome because Matt, Jeffrey, and I each anchor different parts of the study. Jeffrey and Matt have anchored the alcohol component, Matt also has the cardiovascular disease portions, and I\u2019ve been able to focus on the smoking piece. At the same time, though, I\u2019ve learned so much about alcohol. Even though I\u2019ve long been interested in this topic, and have clinically treated alcohol use, I\u2019ve never formally run a study that had alcohol reduction as its primary aim.<\/p>\nPeople ask if Matt and I argue, which only happens rarely. In my eyes there is no downside to the collaboration. There is never a time when I can\u2019t ask him a question or get something straightened out\u2026 and I don\u2019t have to wait for regular business hours to do so. We try to commute together a couple days a week, so we\u2019re able to talk about this and other studies en route. It\u2019s actually is a great way to go. I highly recommend it.<\/p>\n
What advice would you give to physician investigators who are starting to build their careers?<\/strong><\/p>\nMy advice is to find a dedicated mentor who is well-established in a field you\u2019re interested in. They don\u2019t have to be the end-all, be-all perfect fit, but their interest has to overlap enough so that you can learn from them. I can\u2019t stress how important it is to overlap significantly with your mentor at least in your early years, so that you can really benefit from the infrastructure and breadth of his or her knowledge and experience. In addition, it\u2019s important to have fun while learning. All of my mentors were highly qualified, and I learned valuable things from all of them, but the ones that I probably learned the most from were those that I was able to socialize with outside of work. I think it\u2019s important to have not only a working relationship, but occasionally do things together. Matt and I shared a mentor, Dr. Lewis Kuller, and he and his wife, Alice, would take us to the symphony and to dinner, and have us over for their 4th of July party every year. That\u2019s something I also love about Jeffrey; he always finds ways to add some social component to the science. It makes the experience so much more fun and alive. Everyone in this business works very hard, so my advice is to find a mentor who you jive with not only in weekly meetings but outside of work as well. And write a lot of papers together!<\/p>\n
Tell us something surprising about yourself.<\/strong><\/p>\nI have a newfound interest in keeping bees. Bees are really big in Tennessee, and I recently joined the Nashville Area Beekeeping Association where I hope to learn the art of beekeeping. Bees are critical to the food supply. 1\/3 of all the food we eat is generally from pollination that bees helped accomplish. Bees haven\u2019t been doing well recently, and I\u2019d like to try and save the world in my tiny backyard by putting up some bee boxes! I\u2019m a little afraid of getting stung, but I\u2019m attending these meetings to see if I\u2019m ready to take the plunge. My parents had a beehive growing up, and my dad had built a plastic tube for them to travel inside, where they lived during the winter, to the outside. I remember as a young girl being mesmerized while watching these bees travel through the tube.<\/p>\n
Another research interest of mine is the how the attitudes and beliefs that people live by every day translate into health behaviors. The internal medicine physician in me became fascinated by how these beliefs, which form very early in life, influence the behaviors later in life. They influence whether people start smoking, whether they are able to quit, and other important health outcomes. I wrote a paper using data from the Women\u2019s Health Initiative looking at optimism and pessimism and hostility\/anger on mortality outcomes in 100,000 women. Shortly after it was published I was approached to write a book about it. At first I thought it was a joke. But my book \u201cUP: How Positive Outlook Can Transform Our Health and Aging\u201d was published in 2013. It\u2019s basically a lay version of the research and provides the 7 steps one could take to improve attitudes– a call to action for someone who is interested in positive change and looking for a road map.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Spotlight On…Hilary Tindle Hilary Tindle, MD, MPH, Co-Principal Investigator of the St. PETER HIV study and Associate Professor of Medicine at\u00a0Vanderbilt University As told to URBAN ARCH Admin Core staff, February 2017 l-r: Hilary Tindle, Quinn Wells, Matt Freiberg, and\u00a0Madeleine Freiberg at the 2017 Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco Annual Meeting Tell us […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11893,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":160,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"page-templates\/no-sidebars.php","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/urbanarch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7484"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/urbanarch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/urbanarch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/urbanarch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11893"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/urbanarch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7484"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/urbanarch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7484\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7631,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/urbanarch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7484\/revisions\/7631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/urbanarch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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