The Administrative Unit for the proposed UCSF Autoimmunity Center of Excellence (ACE) consists of personnel who have extensive experience in the administration of NIH Center grants. The principal investigator, Dr. David Wofsy, has served as PI for the UCSF ACE grant during the current cycle;prior to that, he served for 10 years as PI for the UCSF Multipurpose Arthritis and Musculoskeletal Diseases Center (MAMDC) grant through NIAMS. Thus, he is very experienced in the leadership of multi-project NIH programs. Dr. Wofsy will be responsible for oversight of the UCSF Center and will serve as the clinical research representative from UCSF to the ACE program. Dr. Jeffrey Bluestone, co-Pi for the Administrative Unit, also has extensive experience in the administration of complex program grants, as evidenced by his role as Director of the NIAID Immune Tolerance Network. Dr. Bluestone will serve as the basic research representative from UCSF to the ACE program. Drs. Wofsy and Bluestone will be joined in their leadership roles by Dr. Maria Dall'Era, Director of the Department of Medicine Clinical Trials Center which will house most of our clinical trials. Drs. Wofsy Bluestone, and Dall'Era will be assisted in fulfilling their responsibilities by Venecia Jacobs. Ms. Jacobs has served as grants manager for our ACE program throughout the current cycle, so she is very familiar with the intricacies of administering this complex program. Drs. Wofsy and Bluestone are particularly well-qualified to lead an ACE program, in that both of them genuinely bridge the gap between basic and clinical research in autoimmune diseases. Dr. Wofsy devoted he first two decades of his career to studies of new therapeutic strategies in murine models for systemic upus erythematosus (SLE), before shifting the emphasis of his research to the design and conduct of clinical rials for people with SLE. He has demonstrated his ability to translate promising work in murine models for SLE into multicenter collaborative clinical trials in humans by leading several major trials, most notably a joint ACE/ITN trial of CTLA4lg that arose out of his prior laboratory-based research. Similarly, Dr. Bluestone has successfully carried his work in murine models for diabetes into large multicenter trials of new therapies for people with diabetes. Drs. Wofsy and Bluestone are thus not only well-suited to the administrative aspects of leading this program, but they are also well-qualified to provide scientific guidance to other investigators in his program.
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