Enrichment Program

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This is an application for a 5 year competitive renewal for the Colorado Nutrition Obesity Research Center (NORC). The broad goal of the NORC is to support and enhance ongoing nutrition/obesity research and to promote interdisciplinary collaborative, vertically integrated research among members of the Colorado NORC research base. We are now in our twentieth year of operation and the NORC supports over 96 regular and 16 mentored investigators in the research base who generate over $43,000,000 per year in direct costs for nutrition/obesity research. The resources of the NORC have been leveraged to secure over $70,000,000 (not counting individual research grants) in support for nutrition/obesity research at the University of Colorado. The research supported by the NORC ranges from cellular and molecular to clinical research to research in the community. We have made a commitment to foster team science within our research base because we believe this is the logical next step in the evolution of our NORC – to use NORC resources to create and support research teams to address big and important research questions that can best be addressed via an interdisciplinary, collaborative approach. We have organized our research base around 4 research team – 1) Maternal-Fetal Origins of Obesity; 2) Investigations in Metabolism, Aging, Gender, and Exercise (IMAGE); 3) Weight Management; 4) Obesity and Metabolic Dysregulation. These teams have already been successful in raising additional resources for team science. The research base is supported by 3 scientific cores that support basic, clinical and community researchers: 1) Molecular & Cellular Analytical; 2) Energy Balance Assessment; 3) Clinical Intervention and Translation. The Colorado NORC has strong leadership with Dr. James O. Hill continuing to serve as NORC Director and Drs. Dan Bessesen and Paul MacLean serving as Associate Directors. The Colorado NORC is located within the Anschutz Health and Wellness Center (AHWC) which is located within the University of Colorado, School of Medicine. A mission of the AHWC is to promote research translation and AHWC facilities provide an opportunity for translation of research emanating from the NORC. Our pilot and feasibility program has been extremely successful in helping develop our new investigators into independent researchers and national leaders in nutrition/obesity. Our enrichment program has been successful in helping promote collaboration and in enriching other health care professionals and the community in the areas of nutrition and obesity. In its twentieth year, the Colorado NORC is well recognized and well respected as one of the leading centers in the world for nutrition and obesity research and research translation.