for Administrative Core The Penn Center for Musculoskeletal Disorders (PCMD) at the University of Pennsylvania will enhance the research productivity of, and provide critical services, resources and programs to, established and new investigators who represent our Center membership. Our members have a wide variety of expertise and address multidisciplinary research strategies for musculoskeletal problems. The overall goal of this Center is to promote cooperative interactions among investigators, accelerate and enrich the effectiveness and efficiency of ongoing research, foster new collaborations and new research, and ultimately, translate our research efforts into better and new therapies for musculoskeletal disorders. This will be done through providing critical research infrastructure, state-of-the-art research resources and study design guidance and intellectual expertise to musculoskeletal investigators. Importantly, the Center serves as a local and regional resource to expand the musculoskeletal community and recruit new investigators to the field. We have chosen to continue the theme of ?Musculoskeletal Tissue Injury and Repair? for the Center. This theme is encompassing (as it includes all musculoskeletal tissue types, such as bone, cartilage, disc, ligament, meniscus, muscle, and tendon), focused (as it takes advantage of commonalities in approaches across all tissue types, with particular emphasis on applications using small animal models), and clinically significant (as it fosters development of assays, procedures and new knowledge in pre-clinical animal and human models of translational relevance).
The Specific Aims are to: 1) Coordinate, integrate, communicate, and monitor the Center components and activities, 2) Advise the Center Director regarding the activities of the Center, 3) Administer the Pilot and Feasibility Grant Program and its associated funding and reporting, 4) Implement an Enrichment Program, and 5) Provide a Resource Sharing Plan. It should be noted that Penn's musculoskeletal research community is quite large and therefore, the needs of our investigators vary widely. Many investigators, both junior and senior, are active users of one or more of our supported Resource Cores as described in this proposal. Other investigators are active participants in our enrichment program, others in our Pilot and Feasibility Grant program, while still others simply utilize our group's e-mail and website for information and identifying new collaborations or research partnership opportunities. One of the great strengths of our Center is its inclusive approach with a broad spectrum of activities and interactions, different from some other Centers that may have a more specific focus such as a ?bone? center or a ?muscle? center. Rather, the PCMD is truly a ?musculoskeletal center? and has emerged as the recognized home for musculoskeletal research across the Penn campus. Further, it has transformed into a regional technical and intellectual resource for the broader Philadelphia musculoskeletal research community.
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