The long term objectives of the San Antonio Asthma and Allergic Diseases Cooperative Research Center (SA-AADCRC) Administrative Core (AC) are: to provide leadership and overall coordination of the projects and cores that comprise the SA-AADCRC and to facilitate interactions between investigators and other NIAID-funded AADCRCs, so that cross-disciplinary expertise and test samples and reagents generated by projects and cores are shared for maximum impact and cost effectiveness. The major focus of the SAAADCRC application is to identify and elucidate the roles of Mycoplasma pneumoniae and its unique Community Acquired Respiratory Distress Syndrome ToXin (CARDS TX), a bona fide ADP ribosylating and vacuolating toxin, and link them to new-onset asthma, exacerbations of asthma, and long-term pulmonary dysfunction in children and adults. The membership of the SA-AADCRC includes investigators from the Departments of Biochemistry, Microbiology and Immunology, Medicine, Pathology, and Pediatrics and the AC will continue to support this closely knit and collaborative group and ensure that all obligations and timelines are achieved and that relationships and communication between the SA-AADCRC and NIAID and other NIAID-sponsored AADCRCs are efficient, helpful and collaborative. The AC specific aims are: assist in the overall management and coordination of activities ofthe SA-AADCRC among investigators and NIAID staff and other AADCRCs; meet regularly with project and core leadership and trainees (graduate and medical students, postdoctoral fellows and residents) to assess strategies and progress, needs and resource allocation; recommend modifications of experimental design and research direction in consultation with key investigators and NIAID; schedule regular in-house research conferences and work-in-progress sessions and internal and external speaker seminars; help in the financial management and re-budgeting of the respective CRC projects and cores; review manuscripts and progress reports; perform the day-to-day administrative activities in order to facilitate effectiveness of the SA-AADCCRC as well as of the entire NIAID-sponsored AADCRC members; and promote the transfer of translational information (diagnostics, therapeutics) to UTHSCSA, NIAID and potential industrial partners. Additional AC responsibilities will promote maximal usage of resources in order to develop new and novel diagnostics and therapeutics for the treatment and prevention of acute and chronic asthma and allergic diseases.
The Administrative Core will coordinate all activities related to the successful performance of the San Antonio-AADCRC, which is to clarify how Mycoplasma pneumoniae and its unique ADP-ribosylating and vacuolating toxin cause asthma and allergic diseases and to provide rational strategies that lead to the development of new and novel diagnostics and therapeutics for the treatment and prevention of acute and chronic asthma and allergic diseases.
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