South Carolina

Medical University of South Carolina

General Clinical Research Center
Medical University of South Carolina
96 Jonathan Lucas Street
P.O. Box 250609
Charleston, SC 29425

Web site: http://www.gcrc.musc.edu

Grant No. M01 RR001070

Special Assays, Services, or Tests

Urinary cortisol
Cytokines
RNA Isolation
DNA Isolation
Adiponectin
Leptin

Special Resources, Instruments, or Services

The Dental Resource Lab is a fully equipped dental suite. It contains state-of-the-art dental equipment including: patient and operator chairs; wall-mounted dental light, two radiographic units (for digital intraoral and panographic); a computer screen for views of digital radiographs, intra-oral camera images, and cable TV; duo hand-piece delivery system, self-contained water system, and an autoclavable HVE and saliva ejector; a sterilization unit; a central treatment console with two wash stations; and accessory storage cabinet.

FreezerWorks software for specimen tracking

Bone Densitometry equipment including: Hologic 4500W Full Body Bone Densitometer, Pea Pod Infant Body Composition System, and the Premier Ultrasound Bone Sonometer

Clean Room Facilities: A class 10,000 clean room facility, i.e. a highly specialized laboratory constructed to maintain aseptic conditions, is located adjacent to the main GCRC laboratory. When the clean room is fully operational, the following types of cell processing functions will be performed within the facility, but not limited to these activities: pancreatic islet cell isolation and processing; hepatocyte isolation and processing; hematopoietic stem cell and progenitor cell processing and/or generation such as dendritic cell generation, T-cell expansion and transduction, tumor vaccine preparation, and gene transduction and expansion of retroviral infected human hematopoietic cells.

Major Areas of Investigation

Rheumatology: Role of nitric oxide in lupus nephritis, rheumatoid arthritis in African Americans, Vitamin D therapy in individuals with systemic lupus erythematosus, proteomic approach to urine biomarkers of disease in lupus nephritis.

Pediatrics: Registry study for children with Type 1 diabetes, neurodevelopmental biology in preschool children, pharmacotherapy of adolescent smokers, treatment of juvenile osteoporosis, pharmacotherapy of marijuana abuse in adolescents, treatment of childhood lupus.

Psychiatry/Substance Abuse: Neuroimaging in adolescents and young adults with substance use disorders, personality and alcohol preference, alcohol dependence in general medical settings, epidural prefrontal cortical stimulation.

Dental Medicine: Oral status of cystic fibrosis patients, oral health in diabetes, oral and pharyngeal cancer epidemiology.

Pharmacokinetic Studies: Bioavailability of milk thistle, role of carboxylesterase-1 in the disposition of methylphenidate.

Maternal/Infant Health: Maternal and infant Vitamin D status, identifying Vitamin D deficiency in very low birth weight infants, Vitamin D status in pregnant women and their children, establishing vitamin D requirements during lactation, N-acetylcysteine in maternal chorioamnionitis.

Cue Reactivity Studies: Gender differences in response to cocaine cues, gender, menstrual cycle and smoking cue reactivity, cue reactivity among non-daily smokers, marijuana cue reactivity, D-cycloserine and cue exposure in cocaine dependence, effect of yohimbine on cocaine cue reactivity, cue extinction in methamphetamine users.

Cardiovascular: Fatty acids, angiotensin and oxidative stress, impact of magnesium supplementation on blood pressure, hypertension in African Americans, dietary fiber and cardiovascular inflammatory markers, effect of L-arginine on inflammation and oxidative stress.

Endocrinology: Epidemiology of diabetes, metabolic syndrome in adult men.

Otolaryngology: Presbyacusis and aging.

Cancer: Role of thromboxane in bladder cancer, chemotherapy of lung cancer, active immunotherapy in colorectal cancer, bone mineral density in women who have had chemotherapy, head neck and lung cancer.

Nephrology: Effects of uninephrectomy, glomerulosclerosis.

Contact Information

For information about this GCRC and how to access its resources, please contact: