The Washington University General Clinical Research Center, established in 1960, consists of inpatient and outpatient research space, including space for complex research procedures, a core laboratory, a CLINFO/VAX system and the corresponding research personnel, and is based in Barnard and Wohl Hospitals and in Children's Hospital in the Washington University Medical Center. The Adult Unit Currently includes 12 inpatient beds and part of the core laboratory on 4 Barnard Hospital and outpatient, research procedure and administrative space on 5 Barnard Hospital. The CLINFO/VAX system, research kitchen, dietary office and an administrative office are in the adjacent 5 Wohl Hospital. The children's Unit includes 8 inpatient beds, outpatient and procedure space and a kitchen on 9 Children's Hospital. The remainder of the core laboratory is on 10 Children's Hospital. These units function under a single administration and share core laboratory and CLINFO services; nursing and dietary staffs are, in general, assigned to one of the units although these are responsible to a nursing administrator and a head dietitian-nutritionist respectively. All faculty members of the School of Medicine who have research protocols approved by the GCRC Advisory Committee and the Washington University Human Studies Committee are eligible to use the resources of the GCRC. Although the primary function of the GCRC is the conduct of clinical investigation, it also provides training in clinical investigation. The GCRC has been utilized heavily with steadily increasing numbers of outpatient visits and research procedures. It has been highly productive in diverse areas such as intermediary metabolism including diabetes and hypoglycemia, mineral metabolism including osteopenia, lipoprotein metabolism and atherosclerosis, neuroendocrine diseases including growth disorders, neonatal brain injury, transplantation, and infectious diseases including vaccine development. Particularly with the influx of new investigators, this productivity can be expected to continue.
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