Administrative Core

Wake Forest University Health Sciences, Winston-Salem NC

Investigators

Linked publications & trials

Abstract

The overall - Despite major advances in diabetes care over the past decade, significant gaps remain in knowledge and implementation of these new modalities has been variable and inconsistent. We still need, for example: Optimal and personalized treatments and prevention strategies, based on detailed pathophysiology, for all subtypes of diabetes; better strategies for extending those benefits to all who suffer from the disease, and; to understand the basis for the risk engendered by diabetes for other conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease. The North Carolina Diabetes Research Center (NCDRC), a partnership among Duke University, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Wake Forest University School of Medicine, was established in 2015, and funded by the NIDDK in 2020. In the prior funding period, NIH support fueled significant GROWTH of diabetes research among our partner institutions that currently supports $15.5M in NIDDK and $48.2M in NIH funded diabetes-related research, and 217 Center members that have contributed 147 publications to the research literature. The THEME of our Center is translation, and our Cores reflect the great breadth of the needs of our members, from basic metabolism (Metabolomics), to preclinical and first in human studies (Bench to Bedside Consultation), through clinical and population studies (Human Studies Consultation). The NCDRC supports a robust and state-wide Pilot and Feasibility (P&F) Program that: (A) introduces new investigators to diabetes research; (B) introduces established diabetes investigators to new resources that will allow them to ask novel questions; and, (C) connects research programs across our institutions. This program has enjoyed considerable success as measured by attracting long-term funding for those investigators and disseminating the resulting new findings to the diabetes research community. The P&F program is buttressed by educational efforts that are part of our Enrichment Program led by our Leadership Administration Core. In addition, we have leveraged our interactions as a multi-institutional Center, for example to successfully obtain federal funding to support training in diabetes-related fields. Having proven the feasibility to work across institutional and geographic boundaries and refined some of the administrative challenges of this, we propose in the next funding period to EXPAND our support of P&F studies, educational outreach opportunities, and access to core research resources more broadly to North Carolina investigators. This expanded outreach will be to institutions with substantial diabetes research portfolios and that connect directly with communities in need of resources (namely NC State University, UNC at Greensboro, and a second HBCU, North Carolina Central University). In the previous funding period, we have also increased the breadth of our outreach, partnering with investigators at other of our NIH-funded Centers who study the association of diabetes with Alzheimer’s disease, lipid metabolism, nutrition, and obesity.