AN INTERDISCIPLINARY STRATEGY FOR OBESITY

该子项目是利用NIH/NCRR资助的中心赠款提供的资源的许多研究子项目之一。子项目和研究者（PI）可能从另一个NIH来源获得了主要资金，因此可以在其他CRISP条目中表示。所列机构为中心，不一定是研究者所在机构。描述（由申请人提供）： 肥胖症及其后果的日益普遍是一个严重和尚未解决的挑战。迄今为止，肥胖预防和治疗的成功有限，部分原因是干预措施侧重于孤立的因素，并采取了“一刀切”的方法。我们假设，肥胖症必须在一个复杂的，个性化的系统内解决的近端和远端的生物和环境因素，使用密集的跨学科的方法。为了有效，这种方法需要从广泛的角度联合专门研究肥胖症的科学家和从业人员，并为他们提供肥沃的环境和基础设施，使他们的专业知识与其他关键学科的研究人员的专业知识协同作用。这一跨学科战略的长期目标是确定预防和治疗肥胖的有效干预措施。我们对NIH路线图规划拨款的愿景是建立在合作环境的基础上，包括跨公共卫生和医学，联合健康科学，艺术和科学学院的部门，以及NIH资助的中心，这些中心正在解决肥胖症的流行，包括临床营养研究中心，卡罗莱纳人口中心，环境健康科学中心和Lineberger癌症中心。我们计划聘请来自营养学，流行病学，健康行为，城市规划，健康经济学，生理学，心理学，遗传学和临床医学等领域的研究人员来开发跨学科肥胖中心（IDOC）。IDOC将包括在七个重叠的主题集群中组织的主要学者，他们将定期开会，以开发共同语言，确定需求，设计和规划具体的研究项目，以实现赠款的目标。此外，我们有一个承诺，从大学管理开发的机制，以克服跨学科项目的障碍，使研究人员可以有资源，时间和空间来实现在提案中概述的目标。该提案的具体目标是：1）让具有不同观点的科学家参与进来，并为他们提供一个基本的、共享的知识基础，以专注于肥胖症的综合战略。2)建立肥胖病因、预防和治疗的跨学科框架; 3）确定加速肥胖研究所需的方法学进展（生物标志物、结果测量、评估工具、遗传评估、环境评估、数学模型等）。我们将应用从我们的跨学科研究中获得的知识，以实现我们开发新的治疗和预防肥胖干预措施的长期目标。

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.