The smooth functioning and productivity of our Center relies heavily on the solid foundation of its Administrative Core A. This Core has functioned quite cohesively during the past 20 years of our Center's existence and continues to do so during the time of this competing renewal. Our Center has two distinct mandates, one generic and one unique. The generic functions are those typical of most U54 Centers. These are to integrate the Center's functions across several interfaces, the first of which are the two collaborating scientific institutions, the Massachusetts General (MGH) and Brigham & Women's Hospitals (BWH). Each of these institutions has their respective research and administrative infrastructures. So coordination of our Center's use of all the Harvard and Partners Core Laboratories (Genetics, Sequencing, Animal Knock-out, Confocal Microscopy, Laser Capture Microdissection, and Systems Biology Cores [Cf. Resources Section I.G pg 79-82) is a key function of this core. Our Administrative Core and its staff support all the administrative needs for the individual Projects and Kl's science. The second component of this generic mandate is to sustain the required administrative interfaces with NICHD, its SCCPIR Program, and other NIH interfaces. However, it is those functions of our Center which derive from our heavy commitment to human investigation that are the unique features that make unusual demands on the Center's Administrative infrastructure. The principle focus of our Center's research, i.e. its ongoing performance of quantitative phenotyping and genotyping studies in humans, is particularly taxing in its demands. This feature accounts why our head administrative post is occupied by our Nurse Practitioner, Andrew Dwyer. The regulatory burden of conducting human genetic research is substantial and growing. Consequently, Mr.-Dwyer in his capacity as head of the Administrative Core tracks, in addition to overseeing the more typical administrative needs of our Center as described above, maintains the IRB, FDA, and HIPAA regulations for all KIs and their scientific projects involving humans. These exacting regulatory burdens that are overseen by our Administrative Core under Andrew Dwyer's close supervision are crucial to our Center's function. Without their ongoing maintenance, our clinical research protocols can be completely shut down. Additionally, our Administrative Core A must interact quite closely with our Phenotyping, Genotyping, & Bioinformatics Core (Core B), Harvard's CTSA and its Clinical Research Center (CRC), our international network of collaborating physicians and their medical centers, and referred patients and their families to support the extensive evaluations and logistics related to travel to our Center. So whereas all of the operationalizing and conducting human subjects research comes under the aegis of Core B, the Administrative Core (Core A) serves an important support role in handling the administrative logistics. The advantage of having a single coordinator in Mr. Dwyer, who is familiar with and skilled in the management of these aspects of the Center's crucial functions is clear. Such a tight level of both intramural and extramural coordination and scientific support is a key function of the Director's goals for this Core and critical to sustain our Center's science. These functions are greatly facilitated by the Administrative Core and its loyal and longterm employees.
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