Mentoring Obesity and Diabetes Research in Louisiana

 描述（由申请人提供）：近三分之二的美国人口临床超重或肥胖，近10%的人口患有成人型糖尿病。肥胖和糖尿病是统称为“代谢综合征”的一组病理学的中心要素。我们在彭宁顿生物医学研究中心的生物医学研究卓越中心（COBRE）的建立是为了通过增加致力于这项研究的校外资助教师的数量和扩大其开展所需的科学基础设施来加强对代谢疾病的研究。在我们的COBRE的第一阶段和第二阶段，我们的中心提供了支持，以15名初级教师谁获得了14个NIH赠款（7 RO 1，2 RO 3，1 R21，1 R56，2 R41，1 R43）和ADA的5个研究赠款。此外，研究基础设施得到了显着改善（1）通过硬件升级和增加生物信息学支持核心的活动，增强基因组学核心，以及（2）建立一个杰出的，装备精良的细胞生物学和生物成像核心，为我们的COBRE支持的机构教师和项目PI提供高水平的专业知识和服务。我们的COBRE在第三阶段的具体目标是通过以下方式进一步扩大从事代谢疾病研究的生产性研究人员的临界质量：（a）保持我们在中心前两个阶段建立和完善的高效指导文化;（B）识别，指导和保留我们最有才华，训练有素的年轻科学家，他们来自我们的机构培训赠款;（c）继续加强我们的科学核心的发展，利用机构支持，维持它们对中心科学家成功的强大积极影响，以及（4）通过为研究试点项目提供支持来维持多学科合作的研究环境，这些项目对获得新的校外支持和维持中心的基础和转化研究至关重要活动

 DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Nearly two-thirds of the US population is either clinically overweight or obese and almost 10% of the population has adult-onset diabetes. Obesity and diabetes are central elements of a cluster of pathologies collectively referred to as "metabolic syndrome". Our Center of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center was established to enhance research on metabolic disease by increasing the number of extramurally-funded faculty devoted to this research and expanding the scientific infrastructure needed for its conduct. During Phases I and II of our COBRE, our Center has provided support to 15 junior faculty members who have obtained 14 NIH grants (7 RO1, 2 RO3, 1 R21, 1 R56, 2 R41, 1 R43) and 5 research grants from the ADA. In addition, the research infrastructure has been significantly improved by (1) enhancement of the Genomics Core through hardware upgrades and addition of Bioinformatics support to the core's activities, and (2) establishment of an outstanding, well equipped Cell Biology and Bio-imaging Core that has provided high levels of expertise and service to institutional faculty and Project PIs supported by our COBRE. The Specific Aims of our COBRE in Phase III are to further expand the critical mass of productive investigators engaged in metabolic disease research by (a) maintaining the highly effective mentoring culture we have built and refined during the first two phases of our Center; (b) identifying, mentoring, and retaining our most talented, well-trained junior scientists emerging from our institutional training grants; (c) continuing to enhance the growth of our scientific cores by leveraging institutional support to sustain their strong positive impact on the success of Center scientists, and (4) sustaining a collaborative multidisciplinary research environment by providing support for research pilot projects that are critical to obtaining new extramural support and sustaining the Center's basic and translational research activities.