This is a revised application seeking to establish a Digestive Diseases Research Core Center to study the pathophysiology and epidemiology of diarrheal disease. The revision consists of the addition of key personnel, the deletion of 2 Core laboratories, and reduction of the number of proposed pilot/feasibility studies from 9 to 5. This CORE CENTER in DIARRHEAL DISEASES (CCDD) would bring together scientists from the Schools of Medicine, Dentistry, and Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the Schools of Veterinary Medicine and Agriculture/Life Sciences at North Carolina State University in a unique cooperative effort to study normal gut function and its derangements which cause diarrhea. Scientists from 15 departments in these 5 schools would take part in the basic research in intestinal water and electrolyte transport, immunology/microbiology, hormones and mucosal biochemistry, and in clinical research in the epidemiology of infectious and chronic diarrhea and the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease. To facilitate and enhance this base research, the CCDD proposes to establish 3 support Core Units: 1) Administrative Core, 2) Barrier Intact Animal Facility, and 3) Biostatistics Core. To promote research into the two major subthemes which grow naturally from this collaboration (inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and infectious diarrhea), the CCDD proposes to fund 5 pilot/feasibility studies of epidemiology and pathophysiology: 1) Pathophysiology of Cryptosporidiosis; 2) Mucus Glycoprotein Synthesis in Rotavirus Infection; 3) Epidemiology of IBD; 4) Relationship of Glandular Kallikrein to IBD; and 5) Effect of Sterile Bacterial Cell Walls on Gut Mucosal Immunity. The CCDD would also promote an understanding of diarrheal diseases through a Scientific Enrichment Program consisting of speakers and seminars. In future years of CCDD operation, a Scientific Review Committee from outside the University would critique Center activities, advise on the operation of Core Units, and select subsequent pilot/feasibility studies from applications submitted by faculty from the two campuses. These administrative and advisory components would assure that these heretofore diverse organizations are joined together by common goals which should yield significant new knowledge about diseases that cause billions of dollars of economic loss in developed nations and millions of lost lives in developing nations.
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