The Translational Research Core is designed to promote and facilitate patient-centered, skin and skin disease-related research.
The first aim i s designed to provide a cost-efficient, central resource to identify and recruit human subjects for both in vivo and in vitro investigations. Interventions, e.g., exposure to UV (with or without preventive interventions such as antioxidants) and hapten sensitization & elicitation, non-invasive monitoring (e.g, ultrasonography and chromametry) and tissue acquisition (venipuncture and punch & keratome biopsies) will be performed. The utility of these functions will be expanded in two ways: by active interactions with physicians who refer patients and with other investigators through the Ireland Cancer Center. A research assistant will coordinate these services: recruiting subjects, performing exposures and non-invasive measurements, preparing exposures and non-invasive measurements, preparing and facilitating review board acceptance of human use protocols, maintaining secure records.
The second aim i s designed to provide overall management of clinical trials of novel compounds brought from the laboratory to the bedside with emphasis on providing optimal clinical information from these trials. A group with expertise in general trial design and specific expertise in objective quantification of skin disease are assembled to efficiently design high quality studies that arise through interaction with investigators bring novel therapies to clinical trials. At the same time, use of these skin scoring will allow for further refinement of these techniques which have been developed at CWRU/UH. Additionally, interactions between clinical and laboratory researchers are fostered to insert adjunctive laboratory studies to clarify mechanisms of action of therapies and pathomechanisms of the treated disease.
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