General Clinical Research Center

EXCEED THE SPACE PROVIDED. This is the first competing renewal application for the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) General Clinical Research Center (GCRC), which serves Arkansas' only medical school and three tertiary care teaching hospitals: the University Hospital, Central Arkansas Veterans Healthcare System (CAVHS) Little Rock Veterans Hospital, and Arkansas Children's Hospital (ACH). The UAMS GCRC was funded in late summer, 1999. The new GCRC opened at the VA in April 2000 and the metabolic kitchen opened in December 2000. Since funding, the GCRC Advisory Committee has considered 145 protocols and the GCRC has supported more than 1600 inpatient and 7500 outpatient visits, and has served more than 30,100 meals. The present proposal has grown from the initial submission of 37 protocols and 20 principal investigators to 72 protocols and 47 principal investigators, of whom 35 investigators are new from the previous submission. As testimony to an effective training program, young investigators and fellows are among these new investigators. Departments represented in the continuation include Medicine, Surgery, Geriatrics, Biochemistry, Pathology, and Pediatrics. This proposal will expand the collaboration between basic and clinical scientists. This GCRC renewal includes a continuation of the pilot grant program, funded in part from institutional funds, to assist investigators in getting extramural funding. In the next funding period, the GCRC will continue to promote patient-oriented research with support of inpatient and outpatient studies in both existing and new areas of investigation. Studies of nutrition, exercise, obesity, and diabetes remain a strong focus of this application; in addition, this proposal includes a new emphasis on genetics studies, with studies of gene expression using microarrays and studies of the physiologic effects of common genetic variants. Accordingly, this application proposes expansion of the Core Laboratory, the training component, and Bioinformatics resources to support this new emphasis. Pediatrics remains an important component of this GCRC, and new projects address the gene-environment interactions resulting in birth defects. Pediatric usage has expanded from 2 to 11 investigators with pediatric studies. ACH will use instititutional funds to build a new facility for clinical research that will permit further expansion of pediatric investigation. In this second funding cycle, the UAMS GCRC will continue expanding campus-wide clinical investigation. Support from all three sister institutions will continue to ensure GCRC success.