Five New Institutional Development Awards, October 2008

The Mind Research Network/University of New Mexico

Albuquerque

Use of Multiple Neuroimaging Tools to Examine the Neural Mechanisms of Schizophrenia
Award Amount: $11.64 million

Principal Investigator
John Lauriello, M.D.

Description (provided by grantee):

This Center for Biomedical Research Excellence will examine the underlying brain circuits and connections involved in schizophrenia by integrating multiple neuroimaging methods with psychiatric, neuropsychological and genetic testing. Its overarching theme is the study of schizophrenia — a disorder that has significant effects on thought, behavior and emotions.

The center is composed of four closely integrated projects conducted by junior investigators with expert mentorship from the MRN and UNM. The four projects are conceptualized as a hierarchy in which each independently investigates a major cognitive domain of dysfunction in schizophrenia. This dysfunction ranges from basic sensory to higher-order deficits, with attention, memory, concept formation and problem solving abilities (i.e., intelligence) listed among the top cognitive deficits that detrimentally affect patients with schizophrenia. The four projects are:

1. Auditory sensory gating, which begins at a basic level of sensory processing — Dr. Andy Mayer, P.I.

2. Auditory and visual, which builds on the first project adding multi-sensory integration — Dr. Julia Stephen, P.I.

3. Traverse patterning, which relies on working memory and relational memory integration — Dr. Faith Hanlon, P.I.

4. Intelligence, which focuses on generalized higher cognitive functioning — Dr. Rex Jung, P.I.

Data will be collected on 100 patients with schizophrenia and 100 healthy normal volunteers. These projects will produce a wealth of information about the nature of anatomic and functional misconnections in schizophrenia and how they relate to the manifestation of the illness.

University of Hawaii, Manoa

Honolulu

Institute for Biogenesis Research, Center of Biomedical Research Excellence
Award Amount: $10.5 million

Principal Investigator
W. Steven Ward, M.S., Ph.D.

Description (provided by grantee):

This Center of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) will serve as an interdisciplinary, translational research institute for reproductive biology. It is created on the foundation of the Institute for Biogenesis Research (IBR) which was established in 1999. The center will continue the legacy of research pioneered by Dr. Ryuzo Yanagimachi, who with his team, produced major breakthroughs in reproductive biology. This current endeavor expands the research effort through collaboration, interdisciplinary mentoring, and creation of a transgenic core. In partnership with the Clinical Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Pacific IVF Institute, the center will support translational projects designed to advance the science of reproduction and to reduce infertility and birth defects for children using the latest molecular, cellular, and micro- techniques, many of which were developed at University of Hawaii. This research will be accomplished by transforming the current Institute for Biogenesis Research into a nationally-competitive, interdisciplinary, translational reproductive biology research center. In addition, the center will improve its institutional capacity by:

1. Engaging senior scientists in mentoring opportunities with junior investigators through interdisciplinary research studies and career development activities; and

2. Drawing upon its expertise to develop a transgenic animal core laboratory that will benefit investigators throughout the university, the IBR COBRE will contribute to infrastructure at the university by enhancing core resources available for investigators across campus, and it will support talented junior faculty toward independence as they conduct innovative basic, clinical and translational studies designed to produce data relevant to reproductive health.

University of Kentucky

Lexington

Center of Research in Obesity and Cardiovascular Disease
Award Amount: $10.53 million

Principal Investigator
Lisa A. Cassis, Ph.D.
Department of Internal Medicine and Graduate Center for Nutritional Sciences, College of Medicine

Description (provided by grantee):

The Center of Biomedical Research Excellence in Obesity and Cardiovascular Disease will identify mechanisms linking the epidemic of obesity to the high incidence of cardiovascular diseases in the obese population, and it will use this research focus as a platform to develop promising junior project investigators and enhance their success at competing for NIH grant support. The center will achieve these objectives by:

1. Assembling a group of established extramurally-supported scientists who will mentor faculty serving as principal project investigators on research projects that address timely and significant questions related to obesity and cardiovascular disease;

2. Providing a variety of mentoring approaches that will facilitate the development of research projects by project investigators, leading to independent NIH-supported research;

3. Developing and supporting shared use core facilities that support and extend research methods critical to the study of obesity and cardiovascular disease;

4. Providing pilot grants for new projects focused on obesity and cardiovascular diseases;

5. Facilitating symposia, seminars and meetings of participants researching obesity and cardiovascular diseases;

6. Focusing on the center's research at retreats dedicated to evaluating progress by project investigators studying obesity and cardiovascular diseases; and

7. Strategically hiring promising new faculty to develop a critical mass of productive physician and basic scientists studying obesity and cardiovascular diseases.

Five project investigators, representing both physician and basic scientists, will serve as principal project investigators on research projects that address a central hypothesis and use a common model of diet-induced obesity to study obesity-induced hypertension, atherosclerosis and platelet dysfunction/vascular inflammation.

University of Louisville Research Foundation, Inc.

Louisville, Ky.

Center of Excellence in Diabetes and Obesity Research
Award Amount: $11.6 million

Principal Investigator
Aruni Bhatnagar, Ph.D., F.A.H.A.

Description (provided by grantee):

This grant promotes the initiation and the development of a multidisciplinary thematic Center of Excellence in Diabetes and Obesity Research at the University of Louisville Research Foundation, Inc. The primary objective and the central focus of the center are to enable, promote and support scientific research related to the cardiovascular causes and consequences of diabetes and obesity. A secondary aim is to provide mentoring and guidance to junior investigators with the overall goal of discovering new therapies for the treatment and prevention of diabetes and obesity. Specific objectives are to:

1. Build and develop a thematic, multidisciplinary research center focused on diabetes and obesity research;

2. Develop basic understanding of the molecular mechanisms of diabetes and obesity and how they contribute to the burden of cardiovascular disease;

3. Expand and connect ongoing research programs to integrate current expertise into a thematically coherent program;

4. Promote collaborative interactions to build complementary individual and multi-investigator research projects;

5. Foster research careers of junior investigators leading to their development as independent investigators;

6. Build upon existing facilities to provide state-of-the-art infrastructure support; and

7. Develop a nationally-competitive program that will attract the best clinical cardiology and basic science fellows and faculty. The projects of junior investigators for the first phase of the center will be supported by establishing state-of-the-art core facilities in confocal microscopy, flow cytometry, cardiovascular pathology, animal models and imaging and function.

University of Nebraska Medical Center

Omaha

Nebraska Center for Nanomedicine
Award Amount: $10.66 million

Principal Investigator
Alexander V. Kabanov, M.S., Ph.D., D.Sc.

Description (provided by grantee):

The Nanomedicine Center currently supports an interdisciplinary team of scientists with specific expertise in nanomedicine, drug delivery, therapeutics, and diagnostics. Nanomedicine is an extremely small, highly specific medical intervention at the molecular scale for curing disease or repairing damaged tissue. With Institutional Development Award funding, these researchers will be joined by biochemists, pharmacologists, immunologists, and neuroscientists. All will work, with singular focus, to develop ways to best use nanoscale devices to improve outcomes for cancer, neurodegenerative, and cardiovascular diseases. Such approaches will deliver drugs directly to tumors or to targeted disease areas within the central nervous system. Parallel studies seek nanotechnologies to improve diagnostic measures and disease monitoring. The anticipated outcome is to maximize clinical benefits and limit side effects. Nanotechnology is one of the most rapidly developing approaches available for drug and gene delivery. The challenges in advancing this filed to the clinical and translational research arenas require the formation of multidisciplinary research center that include broad expertise in material, pharmaceutical, and biological sciences driven by innovative research. This is the foundation for the Nebraska Center for Nanomedicine (NCN). The long-term goals are to build upon and integrate promising areas of research in cancer biology, neurodegenerative disorders, and molecular imaging (magnetic resonance and single photon emission computed tomography) with material and pharmaceutical sciences (nanomaterials, polymers, drug delivery, and gene delivery). The envisioned cross-disciplinary expertise could be joined between traditional biomedical research and material sciences through the NCN. Through the development of effective nanomedicines for human disease diagnosis and therapy, the NCN will ultimately provide significant benefits for the health of society.

Contact Information

For further information, contact:

W. Fred Taylor, Ph.D.
Director, IDeA program
Division of Research Infrastructure
National Center for Research Resources
National Institutes of Health
One Democracy Plaza, Room 936
6701 Democracy Boulevard, MSC 4874
Bethesda, Maryland 20892-4874 (20817 for express mail)
Telephone: 301-435-0760
Fax: 301-480-3770
E-mail: taylorwf@mail.nih.gov