This goal of this project is to substantially enhance the children's health research facilities and to create a core facility of pediatric phenotyping laboratories and patient research resource at Indiana University. The Children's Health Research and Evaluation facility (CHREF) core will be the flagship pediatrics research facility located in Riley Children's Hospital. It will be the primary site for most of the pediatric patient oriented research done at Indiana University School of Medicine. The project has the following Specific Aims:
Specific Aim 1 : To create a comprehensive child health research core dedicated to state-of-the art phenotyping and clinical assessment of research participants.
Specific Aim 2 : To establish shared resources of novel technologies to connect and enhance collaborations between the diverse groups of clinical research scientists.
Specific Aim 3 : To renovate 18560 gsf of existing outdated laboratory space, pediatrics subject assessment resources and associated support space. The proposed project renovates space in the Wells Pediatric Research Center at Riley Hospital for Children, which is located on the second floor of an existing 28,000 two-story building, originally constructed in the 1960's. The proposed project renovates approximately 18,500 GSF on the second level for research laboratories and outpatient examination facilities as required for the planned CHREF. A major part of the area will be gutted and converted to state of the art research laboratories designed to promote interaction between working research groups. The proposed project will have a transformative effect on the different levels of studying both healthy pediatric subjects with a variety disease states. It will bring together a range of existing pediatrics laboratory programs into a single core to create truly collaborative, quantitative phenotyping of diseases and their treatments. With regards to its economic impact, it will create a significant number of constructions jobs and support and sustain 25 full time health care jobs.
