Five years ago, the Tufts Nutrition Collaborative - Center for Drug Abuse and AIDS Research (TNC-CDAAR)was funded in response to an RFA from NIDA as just one of two CDAAR's in the nation. The CDAARs werecharged with the following mission: to foster a collaborative approach to drug abuse and addiction research;to enable studies that would not occur without the climate, facilities, and resources that a research centercan uniquely provide; to serve as a resource to attract established and promising investigators into drugabuse research; and to provide opportunities for research training, career development, and mentoring. TheTNC-CDAAR was formed as a partnership between three East Coast Institutions (Tufts, Brown and JohnsHopkins) with a specific focus on studying nutritional and metabolic disorders among HIV-positive and HIVnegativedrug users. Over the past five years, we have expanded the TNC-CDAAR to include collaboratorsfrom 3 international sites: Argentina, India, and Vietnam. Our major accomplishments, thus far, have been to1) design and implement several new studies to assess and compare the prevalence and incidence ofspecific nutritional and metabolic disorders in drug users of different ethnicities, both in the U.S. and abroad;2) develop training materials, protocols, and manuals for investigators who want to undertake similar studiesin their localities; 3) help in the development of new grant proposals in Center-related areas of research; and4) become a resource center on nutrition and metabolic disorders in drug users. The Center will continue towork to raise awareness of the importance of nutritional and metabolic disorders on outcomes in the drugusing population and to encourage investigators to include studies of nutritional and metabolic status in theirresearch in drug using populations. The five Center Cores will continue to work synergistically to provide amultitude of services for Center Members. Specifically, the Administrative Core oversees, organizes andmaintains the policies and procedures of the Center for Metabolic Research in Drug Users (CDAAR) as awhole, ensuring smooth operation and management of the Center. The Administrative Core provides thescientific leadership necessary to set the priorities for the Center, with an overall goal of stimulating new andcollaborative research on the nutritional, and metabolic effects of HIV infection and drug use among variouscommunities of drug users with a proposed specific focus on the impact of hepatitis or liver dysfunction onthese nutritional and metabolic effects in drug users.
Showing the most recent 10 out of 91 publications