The establishment of a Diabetes and Endocrinology Research Center (DERC) at the Barbara Davis Center for Childhood Diabetes (BDC) at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center (UCHSC) in 2000 brought together a unique group of basic and clinical scientists from different faculty and research backgrounds to enhance productivity and the quality of diabetes and endocrinology research in the university. In the five years since its foundation, basic research grant income of the DERC research base has increased two-fold to $6.4 million and clinical research income six-fold to $4.9 million mainly from NIH sources. New Program Project and Consortium funding has been developed in most areas of the Research Base including islet developmental biology, human islet transplantation, autoimmunity and diabetes translational research. In 2005 most UCHSC departments will move to the new Fitzsimons campus and the BDC will build a new Center of 110,000 sq. ft., more than three times large than the current building. This competing renewal thus comes at an exciting and challenging time of immense opportunity for implementation of the NIH roadmap for diabetes. The new DERC will have 58 members, up from 33 in the previous period. Many of the members were recruited through the externally-reviewed DERC Pilot and Feasibility Program which we plan to expand from three to five awards per year at $50,000 each. An Administrative and four Biomedical Cores in Cytometry, Bioresources, Molecular Resources and Clinical and Informatics will be structured around existing expertise and large instrumentation to deliver state-of-the-art technologies to the greatest number of investigators in a cost-effective manner. Each of the Cores will have customized dedicated space in the new building and will interconnect with other UCHSC Core facilities notably in the areas of mouse gene targeting, microarray analyses, proteomics and bioinformatics. The expanded Research Base also addresses the need to include expertise in these areas using collaborators from within UCHSC and its affiliates such as the National Jewish Medical Research Center. Some new equipment is needed to make the DERC Cores fully operational and has been requested as matching funds on the application when exceeding $10,000 in price. Training is an important component of the DERC and ranges from """"""""Bed and Breakfast"""""""" programs in molecular biology and histological procedures to participating in new NIH training grants and K08 awards. DERC members participate in a series of seminars, journal clubs and an annual workshop. Dr. Hutton, Ph.D., and Dr. Eisenbarth, M.D., Ph.D., will provide administrative oversight of the DERC along with Executive and Steering committees of DERC and UCHSC investigators. The External Advisory Board Members, comprised of distinguished investigators in the field of diabetes are appointed to perform periodic site visits to review the DERC scientific goals and progress towards them. The activities of the DERC will be broadly disseminated through a website (www.iicnsc.edu/inisc/diabetes/derc) that also serves as the major conduit for the advertising, ordering and billing for Core services that are offered on a discounted fee-for-service basis to DERC members.
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