The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS), Arkansas's only medical school and tertiary care center, has undergone remarkable expansion in funding and institutional commitment to clinical research during the past decade. The biomedical research mission of UAMS is closely aligned with two sister institutions, the Little Rock Veterans Administration Medical Center (VAMC) and the Arkansas Children's Hospital (ACH). The quantity of clinical research conducted at UAMS has now reached a critical mass that requires the expansion and strengthening of the institutional capabilities and infrastructure to sustain high-quality clinical research. The proposed General Clinical Research Center (GCRC) will be the core facility for the multiple research elements that comprise the UAMS campus and its affiliates. The long-term goals are to emphasize the resources of the GCRC to recruit faculty with primary interests in patient oriented research; to encourage funded investigators to apply findings from bench to bedside; to train junior investigators in the conduct of clinical research; and to introduce and encourage patient-oriented research to housestaff and medical, nursing, and basic-science students. A broad training program, with the committed support of the UAMS College of Medicine, will underwrite these goals. This proposal specifically seeks to establish a GCRC at the VAMC as a vehicle for clinical research involving patients and outpatients treated by NIH- and VA-funded clinicians Because nutrition and obesity research are strong themes in the individual projects, a metabolic kitchen, dietitian support, and body composition core facility are key components of the proposed GCRC. Funding is also requested for sample processing and muscle analysis cores. Inpatient facilities will accommodate studies in extended-stay exercise and nutritional balance, gene therapy, and sleep studies. Both inpatient and outpatient studies will use procedure rooms for metabolic studies and infusions. Outpatient rooms will be used for large genetic epidemiology studies, family studies, subject recruitment, and simple screening tests. A proposed computer data systems management unit will develop state-of-the-art support for sample tracking, patient scheduling, database management, and statistical analysis. Biostatisticians will assist investigators in designing clinical studies and analyzing data. Combined, the resources provided through the GCRC will sustain and improve the clinical research efforts at UAMS and the VAMC.
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