We propose to establish, as a new institutional resource, a Clinical Nutrition Research Unit (CNRU) at the Massachusetts General Hospital of Harvard Medical School (HMS) in collaboration with the Clinical Research Center, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) and the Department of Nutrition, Harvard School of Public Health (HSHP). The overall goal of this CNRU is to provide high quality research which will yield insights into the cause and pathogenesis of nutrition-related disease and lead to improved therapeutic approach to nutrition care. The major specific aims are: 1) to provide research in basic areas of biology relevant to problems in clinical nutrition; 2) to promote the study of clinical nutrition and application of knowledge derived there form within the HMS, M.I.T. and HSHP community; 3) to promote interactions among scientists and clinical investigators to show relevance to advancing the science of clinical nutrition; and 4) to attract """"""""basic"""""""" investigators into the domain of clinical nutrition to promote an environment and mechanism to develop new investigator-initiated research.
These aims will be facilitated through the functioning of several CNRU biomedical core resources; (a) Molecular Biology; (b) Morphology/Tissue Culture/Flow Cytometry; and (c) Mass Spectrometry. These cores will serve as an important way to coordinate access of CNRU investigators in the rich and exciting scientific expertise available in these areas within CNRU. A pilot/feasibility program in support of the above aims will place special emphasis on proposal to explore the extension of work emerging from laboratories of basic scientist in a manner relevant to the understanding and resolution of clinical nutrition problems. Here the research proposed extends from the level of the gene to treat of integrated, complex patient. Additionally, an education enrichment program is proposed including seminars, short-courses, colloquia, tutorials and formal didactic classroom presentations in the immediate academic/hospital area. This revised CNRU will effectively promote the quality and extent of nutrition research in the HMS/MIT/HSHP area and increase the awareness of nutrition and etiology and management of various disease states and in the maintenance of vigorous health.
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