The overall mission ofthe UCSD/UCLA DRC continues to center on fostering research in the prevention and treatment of diabetes and its complications to ultimately improve the lives of patients. For the past decade, our DRC has been unique in linking together the diabetes/metabolism activities of two major universities within the UC system. We believe this has been a novel, and a very successful effort; Thus, we have been able harness the collective energy and scientific excitement at UCSD/Salk and UCLA/Cedars-Sinai, which comprise the major proportion of research in diabetes/metabolism in Southern California. The DRC has fostered new collaborations and interactions between outstanding scientists within and across these institutions and has played an important role in promoting the careers of young scientists as they move on to the status of independent investigators. Our research base faculty membership now includes 109 outstanding scientists who have been exceptionally successful as can be judged by the numerous publications in high impact journals and the generous peer review grant support that they have accrued ($155 million dollars). Some selective highlights over the past four years include: (1) Organization of the Pediatric Diabetes Research Center (PDRC) at UCSD along with the addition of the La Jolla Allergy and Immunology Institute (LIAI) on the UCSD campus, which brings a number of outstanding new faculty into the DRC, all focused exclusively on type 1 diabetes research. (2) Establishment and occupancy of the Institute for Regenerative Medicine on the UCSD campus which has a focus on human stem cell research and beta cell generation (3) Major recruitments and addition of diabetes/metabolism-based scientists at both UCLA and UCSD. For example, this includes Richard Bergman and Marilyn Ader, and their respective groups, at Cedars-Sinai, Kumar Sharma at UCSD, and Matthias von Herrath at LIAI. (4) Outstanding success of our P&F awardees as they move forward and upward in their scientific careers. An acknowledgement of this, UCSD and UCLA have agreed to provide $100,000/year in unrestricted funds to augment our P&F program. (5) Establishment and continuation of several program project grants and center among our collaborating DRC faculty, headed by Drs. Chris Glass, Pam Mellon, Susan Taylor, Aldons Lusis, Joe Witztum, and Steve Young. All of our Research cores have been updated with new services and state-of-the-art technologies in the upcoming project period. In addition, we have added a new Novel Target Discovery and Assay Development Core to reflect the many advances in this field as they relate to diabetes and metabolism research.
of the UCSD/UCLA DRC is promotion and enhancement of research into the mechanisms, etiology, pathophysiology, treatment, and prevention of diabetes mellitus and its complications and related metabolic disorders through the outstanding scientific accomplishments ofthe faculty comprising our research base, our biomedical research cores, the P&F Program, and the Enrichment Program and Administrative Cores. Our firm conviction is that success will ultimately improve the lives of patients with diabetes.
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