RESEARCH CORE

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RESEARCH CORE Overview of Research Projects The Research Core proposed for NCCU's NCMHD Research Center will be housed in the JLC-BBRI where it will draw on the Institute's available resources, while building on the strengths of the Core developed with funds provided by the EXPORT P20 Center Grant. A primary objective of the proposed Research Core will be to strengthen and expand existing partnership initiatives that focus on minority health disparities. Over the past four (4) years, an administrative team composed of the leadership of the various EXPORT Center components along with their co-leaders from collaborating academic institutions has assisted the PI with designing and implementing the Center's research programs. These programs have been remarkably successful in advancing the agenda envisioned for the Center. Approximately three (3) months ago, while,the administrative team was assisting the EXPORT Center PI Dr. Harewood with the annual evaluation of the Center's programs, component leaders were instructed to prepare and present progress reports for review by the program leadership. All progress reports were required to include a future planning section. These planning sections have provided a framework for discussions initiated in August 2006 when a comprehensive planning process was initiated to manage the preparation of this renewal application. A Planning Committee was formally established to drive this process. It included the JLC-BRI Research Program Directors, directors of existing EXPORT Center Program Components, and co-leaders from collaborating academic institutions. This Committee has helped to define the plan for the research core that is described below. It helped to develop the criteria for selecting the full research projects, and to determine the appropriateness of the shared resource cores and pilot projects to be included in the P20 application. The planning process addressed issues such as: ¿ appropriateness of the proposed research project for addressing a minority health disparity need; ¿ reliability of preliminary data to identify a specific hypothesis to be investigated; ¿ expertise of the NCCU research team members and their collaborators from partnering institutions; ¿ alignment of the proposed project with the thematic focus of the exploratory NCMHD Center; ¿ potential for faculty/student development; ¿ likelihood of sustained participation by project team members in conducting research involving repeated collection of genetic and phenotypic data; and ¿ probability of yielding peer-reviewed publications and meritorious grant applications. Based on this input, the partnership will launch a major research initiative that will include full research projects on stress and cardiovascular disease and prostate cancer. Both of these are major health disparity diseases that NCCU scientists and their collaborators are competent to investigate. The pilot projects and shared resource cores were selected to complement the research programs. Issues that will be addressed include: genetic predisposition, nutrition, and gene/environment interactions. The activities of the Research Core are designed to: expand NCCU's infrastructure and capacity to conduct health disparities research; involve NCCU students in health disparities research; stimulate and promote faculty and student exchanges; and through sponsorship of workshops, focus group meetings, and formal seminars increase student, faculty, and community awareness of .cardiovascular disease and cancer. While most of the proposed research will be conducted in the well-equipped laboratories of the JLC-BBRI, the Center's activities are projected to expand significantly when the BRITE facility becomes available in 2007. This new building which will be connected to the 125,000 sq. ft. new science complex will add approximately 65,000 sq. ft. of research and teaching space to the university's infrastructure. To date, there are 23 research-active faculty conducting health disparities research in the JLC-BBRI. A description of each of the components of the Research Core is presented below.