Through its mission to support research infrastructure, the National Center for Research Resources (NCRR) currently provides support of the 79 GCRCs that are based at academic medical centers throughout the country. Without these GCRCs, the conduct of clinical research by members of the extramural research community would be prohibitively expensive. In addition to providing an institutional site for the conduct of human investigation, the GCRC program also provides a centralized base and substantial support for the training of the next generation of clinical investigators. This proposal, submitted under the U13 (Cooperative Agreement) mechanism, requests support for five annual meetings of the GCRC Program. The four major objectives of these meetings will be: 1) to reinforce, enhance, and stimulate scientific excellence in patient-oriented/clinical research within the nationwide GCRC network; 2) to achieve effective NIH-GCRC administrative dialogue and exchange of information, thereby effecting integration of their responses to public and congressional mandates concerning relevant patient-oriented research; 3) to improve methods of assuring and monitoring the safety of all subjects involved in clinical research supported by the GCRC network; and 4) to create an environment in which the GCRCs best junior investigators have an opportunity to present their own research, to interact with one another, and to gain exposure to and learn from national leaders in the field of human investigation. To assure that the four main objectives of the annual meeting of the GCRC program are accomplished, a Steering Committee is proposed. This committee, which will be composed of representatives from both the national GCRC network and from the NIH, will meet via monthly conference calls. The make-up of the Committee will include: the Program Chairperson who will be selected each year by the Executive Committee of the GCRC Program Directors (PDs) Association; a designated representative from Bionutritionist, Research Nurses, Informatics Core, Laboratory Core, Research Subject Advocate (RSA) Office and CAPS/MCAPS groups; and a designated representative from the NIH GCRC staff. Additional participants in these monthly meetings will include the president of the GCRC PDs Association and the program representative from Meetings Plus, the conference organizer. Based on the past several meetings, the investigators anticipate attendance by over 700 individuals including: PDs and Associate PDs, Nurse Mangers, Bionutritionists, Administrative Managers, Informatics Managers, Biostatisticians, Core Laboratory Managers, RSAs, and CAPS/MCAPs/K23s.
