AN INTERDISCIPLINARY STRATEGY FOR OBESITY

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This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. The subproject and investigator (PI) may have received primary funding from another NIH source, and thus could be represented in other CRISP entries. The institution listed is for the Center, which is not necessarily the institution for the investigator. DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The escalating prevalence of obesity and its consequences is a serious and unresolved challenge. Obesity prevention and treatment have had limited success to date, in part because interventions have focused on isolated factors and adopted a "one size fits all" approach. We hypothesize that obesity must be addressed within a complex, individualized system of proximate and distal biological and environmental factors using an intensive interdisciplinary approach. To be effective, such an approach requires coalescing scientists and practitioners who specialize in obesity from a broad range of perspectives and providing them with a fertile environment and infrastructure to synergize their expertise with that of investigators from other key disciplines. The long-term goal of this interdisciplinary strategy is to define effective interventions for prevention and treatment of obesity. Our vision for this NIH Roadmap planning grant is to build on the collaborative environment at UNC that includes departments that cross the Schools of Public Health and Medicine, Allied Health Sciences, and Arts and Sciences, and NIH-funded Centers that are addressing the obesity epidemic, including the Clinical Nutrition Research Center, Carolina Population Center, the Center for Environmental Health Sciences and the Lineberger Cancer Center. We plan to engage researchers from vantages such as: nutrition, epidemiology, health behavior, urban planning, health economics, physiology, psychology, genetics, and clinical medicine to develop the Inter-Disciplinary Obesity Center (IDOC). The IDOC will include leading scholars organized in seven overlapping topical clusters who will meet on a regular basis to develop a common language, identify needs, and design and plan specific research projects to achieve the Aims of the grant. In addition, we have a commitment from the University Administration to develop the mechanisms to overcome barriers to interdisciplinary programs so investigators can have the resources, time, and space to achieve the goals outlined in the proposal. The Specific Aims of the proposal are: 1) Involve scientists with diverse perspectives and provide them with a fundamental, shared knowledge base to focus on an integrated strategy for obesity. 2) Build an interdisciplinary framework for the etiology, prevention, and treatment of obesity; and 3) Identify methodological advances needed to accelerate obesity research (biomarkers, outcome measures, assessment tools, genetic assessment, environmental assessment, mathematical models, etc.). We will apply the knowledge gained from our interdisciplinary research to achieve our long-term goal of developing novel treatment and prevention interventions for obesity.