Many disease processes, for example those related to cancer, stroke and HIV infection, and health problems, such as prolonged would healing, involve injury to cells and tissues. Furthermore, these primary problems as well as interventions designed to alleviate adverse outcomes from injury, such as return of blood flow after stroke, may cause additional injury and seriously impact quality of life. Conventional biomedical studies have often overlooked injury mechanisms and related responses that are of concern to nursing and patient care. Thus, we at The University of Arizona College of Nursing have been investigating injury mechanisms and related responses to fill in these gaps. The overall goal of this proposed Exploratory Center is to increase understanding about injury mechanisms and related responses by incorporating biological techniques and measures into nursing studies and interdisciplinary investigations.
The specific aims are to 1)Expand the capabilities of the College of Nursing Biological Laboratories in order to support continued studies on injury mechanisms and related responses relevant to health problems and to nursing, 2)facilitate collaborations among investigators in the College of Nursing and in other disciplines who share research interests in injury mechanisms and related responses, 3)increase the number of nursing studies that use state-of-the-science methods for investigating injury mechanisms and related responses to injury. The proposed exploratory Center on Injury Mechanisms and Related Response will provide an infrastructure that centralizes facilities and resources to support basic and collaborative research endeavors. The Center infrastructure will include an Administrative Core and a Feasibility Studies Core. This infrastructure will expand College of Nursing Biological Laboratories capabilities by housing equipment to perform immunoassays, electrophoresis, cell culture studies, and human physiology measures. The Center will be housed within the College of Nursing, however, Center Investigators represent a broad range disciplines, such as psychology and physiology. Center Investigators bring expertise in methods encompassing molecular and cellular biology, biochemistry and physical chemistry. Biological imaging techniques, and human physiological measures. Thus, the collective expertise and research efforts of Center Investigators have great potential to advance knowledge about injury mechanisms and related responses relevant to health problems and to nursing.
