Research Infrastructure Core

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Abstract Texas Southern University (TSU), the nation’s second largest HBCU, has been continuously supported by the RCMI program for many years, and has significantly strengthened our research environment. In the last RCMI funding cycle, we successfully developed and deployed three core facilities including Pharmacology, Molecular Biology, and Environmental Toxicity. These advances have led to productive collaborations on projects including new drug targets, new lead compounds, preclinical lead optimization, and formulation. However, there is an unmet need to enhance our research resources and services to include study design, methodology development, data management, specialized laboratory techniques (e.g., genome editing, animal work skills), instrument utilization, and collaboration networks. In this renewal application, we propose to establish a Research Infrastructure Core (RIC) in the Center for Biomedical and Minority Health Research (CBMHR) to support research and pilot projects by providing these enhanced services (in addition to research infrastructure made available through previous RCMI funding) to TSU and external users and to facilitate new collaborations in biomedical research. The specific aims are: Support CBMHR research and pilot projects and provide services to users to enhance quality and productivity of biomedical research (Aim 1); Develop and validate laboratory techniques to support CBMHR research and pilot projects and provide trainings to internal and external users (Aim 2); and Facilitate networking to increase collaborative research projects and grant applications (Aim 3). We propose to form a faculty expert team, consultant team, and recruit skilled staff to support our users in six areas in which we have great expertise and credibility. The involved personnel, including core director, co- director, faculty expert team members, and consultants, will be experts in the key research areas. We also propose to facilitate new collaborations with experts in other institutions to integrate research resources across the Houston area. Additionally, we will integrate core information including fee structures into the CBMHR website to promote our services. Innovations of this proposed RIC include novel research methodology development, collaborative research projects and grant applications, and collaborative synergism. We expect that this proposed RIC will significantly enhance TSU’s research capability in biomedical and minority health research so that more competitive grant proposals can be submitted to different agencies (e.g., NIH) and more faculty, especially junior faculty, will be successful in their academic career.