Musculoskeletal disorders are common and result in significant disability and health care costs. Advancements in the diagnosis and treatment of musculoskeletal disorders requires a robust clinical research infrastructure and improved classification of the various disorders. The latter is critical to precision or personalized medicine approaches as many musculoskeletal disorders have common clinical presentations of pain and impaired physical function despite diverse pathophysiology. Furthermore, research to date often focuses on bone or muscle and not how they interact. The overarching theme of the Indiana Core Center for Clinical Research (ICCCR) is to enhance clinical research in musculoskeletal disorders and to understand the muscle-bone connection by better defining, or phenotyping, this broad class of disorders in order to advance clinical research. The ICCCR will leverage campus resources of our CTSA that includes Indiana and Purdue Universities, our statewide healthcare system IU Health, the Regenstrief Institute's statewide electronic health record system, and the Precision Health Initiative to enhance clinical research. The ICCCR will work with Thematic Teams of multi-disciplinary investigators to create innovative ways to think about musculoskeletal disorder phenotypes. The ICCCR will support individuals to connect investigators and Thematic Teams to the methodologic and resource cores thereby facilitating access to and help in conducting research that 1) utilizes our vast network of electronic health records, omics, and bioinformatics group to create computable, genetic and molecular phenotypes, 2) develops standardized physical function and imaging modalities to develop functional and morphologic phenotypes, and 3) expands the Indiana Biobank's musculoskeletal tissue and blood resources. The ICCCR will work with community and industry partners to facilitate recruitment and technology transfer and provide pilot funding to support new research. In the Methodologic Core, the ICCCR will train, facilitate and support investigators to expand access to biostatical support and project review, enhance clinical research and patient health by leveraging large databases to define and validate computable phenotypes, and accelerate the human to bench and back cycle of musculoskeletal discovery by assisting investigators in state of the art evaluation of musculoskeletal biospecimens. These new and innovative initiatives under the ICCCR will link our musculoskeletal researchers of Indiana Center for Musculoskeletal Research to state of the art resources to identify novel targets for diagnosis and treatment of musculoskeletal disorders. We will challenge the traditional approach of bench to bedside research to instead focus on patient phenotype to bench and back research. This will improve the definition and diagnosis of the many musculoskeletal disorders to diseases that have common pathogenesis and clinical presentations, facilitating personalized medicine by focusing the right treatment for each patient.
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