Supplement to Vanderbilt Diabetes Research and Training Center

Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville TN

Investigators

Linked publications & trials

Abstract

In response to NOT-OD-19-070 (Availability of Funds for Revision Applications for Research Centers with a Focus in Chronic Disease and the Reduction of Health Disparities), the Vanderbilt Diabetes Research and Training Center (DRTC, P30DK20593) and the Vanderbilt Center for Diabetes Translation Research (CDTR, P30DK092986) propose to enhance their long-standing efforts to discover, apply, and translate scientific knowledge about diabetes, obesity, and metabolism in order to improve the public health and reduce the burden of disease from diabetes. These centers, which have worked closely for more than 10 years and have created synergistic and coordinated efforts and programs, propose to establish a Southeast Regional Pilot and Feasibility (P&F) Program. By leveraging Vanderbilt's more than 25-year experience overseeing a NIDDK- supported diabetes-related P&F program, we will solicit P&F grant applications from Vanderbilt, University at Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), and Emory University (all of which have NIDDK-supported P30 grants), and other institutions and organizations in the Southeast. P&F proposals will focus on chronic diseases like diabetes and obesity and encourage multidisciplinary collaborations with a focus on prevention and reduction of disease burden. Applicants will be encouraged to leverage existing cohorts such as the Southern Community Cohort Study and use the existing core facilities in the NIDDK-funded Diabetes Centers at Vanderbilt, UAB, and Emory. We expect to award five P&F grants of two-year duration. In the last quarter of year 2, we will organize a Collaborative Research Symposium that will provide the opportunity for each funded investigator to describe the research supported by the program. We will also invite other investigators in the Southeast working in related areas and expect attendees from Vanderbilt, UAB, Emory, Meharry Medical College in addition to public health officials in the state and local governments and the CDC. We will also invite trainees (graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, etc.) from institutions in the southwest to interact and hear from two keynote speakers. In this way, the Southeast Regional Pilot and Feasibility (P&F) Program and Collaborative Research Symposium will promote collaborative efforts to prevent and reduce the burden of diabetes in the Southeastern United States.