The primary purpose of the Translational Research module is to promote and facilitate inter-disciplinary collaborations among vision scientists, clinician scientists, and clinicians who do not have the means or expertise to conduct innovative, translational, patient-based clinical research. The UC Berkeley Clinical Research Center (CRC) housed in the School of Optometry was established in 2004. The CRC was created with the aim of supporting vision researchers, academic institutional partners, and private sector companies to explore new models and strategies for the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of ocular anomalies. To accomplish this, the CRC established an infrastructure with a professional staff to conduct basic-science and translational research as well as patient-based clinical studies and trials. To date, the CRCs collaborations with basic science researchers have been successful but on a small scale, due primarily to funding constraints. Examples of these research activities include collaborations with principal investigators (PIs) within UC Berkeley campus on various vision-related research studies, including accommodation (Co-PI: Cliff Schor/Optometry); innovative non-thermal and non-chemical sterilization technique of contact lenses (Co-PI: Boris Rubinsky/Bioengineering); myopia (Co-PI: Chris Wildoset/Optometry); genetic influence on contact lens-induced adverse events (Co-PI: Lisa Barcellos/Public Health); environmental stress on tear film biophysical and biochemical properties (Co-PI: Randy Maddalena/LBNL); a novel OCT technique to examine retinal layers (Co-PI: Brandon Lujan/Optometry); Amblyopia (Co-PI: Dennis Levi/Optometry), and rheology of tear film (Co-Pl: Tatyana Svitova and Clayton Radke/Chemical Engineering). These projects are in progress with manuscripts in preparation. A Core Translational Research module would enable expansion of the CRC to support significantly larger scale (e.g., longitudinal clinical trials) multi-disciplinary, interdepartmental collaborations. This support would include clinical research study design, recruitment of research subjects and compliance with institutional review boards (IRB) overseeing human subject research, conduct of clinical studies and trials, statistical analysis, and collaborative reporting of study results. The resources of the CRC, under the direction of the module co-directors, would be available to basic science researchers in the greater vision science community (with priority given to CORE grant P.l.s), including professional and support staff.
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