Diabetes Research and Training Center

DESCRIPTION, OVERALL (provided by applicant): This application is to continue Albert Einstein College of Medicine's Diabetes Research and Training Center (DRTC) in order to support the discovery, application and translation of scientific knowledge for the treatment and cure of diabetes. The Einstein DRTC serves as a nexus to i) enhance diabetes research, education and training; ii) to attract, mentor and retain research investigators; iii) provide state-of-the-art Core services to maximize research productivity; iv) foster interdisciplinary collaborations, and v) to promote the translation of scientific findings from the bench to bedside and community, especially in underserved and minority populations. To accomplish these goals, we are requesting support for an administrative component with overall responsibility for management, integration and promotion of research and training. This component will supervise the Research Base, Biomedical and Prevention & Control Cores, the Enrichment and Pilot & Feasibility Study Programs. Since the previous application, the Einstein DRTC, through new leadership and Institutional commitment, has expanded the faculty Research Base, expanded and developed new Core functions and enhanced the Enrichment and Pilot & Feasibility Programs. In particular, over the past 16 months we have recruited 10 new Einstein DRTC faculty, appointed 4 existing senior Einstein faculty as members of the DRTC, based upon their new diabetes research focus, and provided full Einstein DRTC faculty membership to 8 faculty at other New York institutions as well as to the members of the Columbia DERC. Four new cutting-edge Biomedical Cores that complement and add to the services already provided by two existing Einstein DRTC cores and the other Institutional cores. The DRTC Biomedical Cores include, 1) Animal Physiology; 2) Stable Isotope & Metabolomics; 3) Hormone Assay; 4) Analytical Imaging; 5) Flow Cytometry; and 6) Epigenomics. The Prevention and Control (P&C) component has also expanded its research base of behavioral, health services, and epidemiological faculty and has established three functional units that include 1) Clinical Research Methodology; 2) Behavioral Intervention/Evaluation Methodology and 3) Social-Environment Research Methodology. We have continued our outstanding Pilot & Feasibility Study Program through which new initiatives in basic, clinical, and behavioral research are supported. The Einstein DRTC Enrichment program has continued to host outstanding speakers, to videoconference and co-host seminars with Mount Sinai Medical School, to have weekly trainee Diabetes Workshop presentations and to provide Core educational workshops and training venues.