Core E: Clinical and Transitional

(NIH Grant number: P30DK079328)

Director:         Robert D. Toto, M.D.
Co-Director:    Ronald Victor, M.D.

A major goal of our O’Brien Center is to translate basic science research into effective diagnostic and therapeutic strategies that will improve the lives of patients by interrupting the pathogenesis of chronic kidney disease and its attendant high risk of cardiovascular disability and death. Over the past 30 years, a large investment in biomedical research has led to substantial improvements in patient care and extended life in the general population.

The Clinical and Translational Core is designed to overcome this barrier by encouraging new collaborative efforts that tear down traditional silos between basic and clinical investigators.

The primary objective is to serve as a platform for supporting the highest quality clinical and translational research in kidney disease and associated cardiovascular disease by funded Center Investigators.

In addition to study populations available to investigators through their own initiatives, an important aspect of our O’Brien Center is to take full advantage of the Dallas Heart Study population, a unique resource available at UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas.

Distinctive Features of the UTSW O’Brien Kidney Center Clinical and Translational Core:

Traditionally,  human renal and cardiovascular physiology studies have been performed on small selected study samples, while human genetic epidemiology studies often have been conducted in large populations without physiological measurements, i.e., without intermediate phenotypes.

Our Core is designed to combine state-of-the-art comprehensive human genetics with detailed state-of-the-art phenotyping of subjects drawn from unique study samples with unprecedented minority representation (Figure 1).

In this regard, a major strength of the Clinical and Translational Core is the availability of the Dallas Heart study—a large multiethnic population-based cohort with over 50% of the participants being African American—and the longitudinal cohort of the African American Study of Kidney Disease and Hypertension (AASK)(5;6).

The Clinical and Translational Core will coordinate the recruitment of study participants for O’Brien Center Investigators and provide them with state-of-the-art phenotypic measurements of human renal and cardiovascular structure and function. Unique capabilities range from microelectrode recordings of sympathetic action potentials to proton magnetic resonance spectroscopic measurements of renal and cardiac steatosis—specific pathophysiological processes that could provide a common mechanistic explanation for the remarkably tight link between cardiac and renal disease as well as identifying novel therapeutic drug targets for early intervention—sufficiently early to prevent (rather than merely delay) clinical endpoints such as end-stage renal disease, stroke, myocardial infarction, and death.

Services:

• Human research protocol design, methods, and implementation and conduct.
• Study participant recruitment and management.
• Regulatory document preparation and monitoring.
• Biostatistical support for both human and laboratory studies.
• Blood and urine sample collection, preparation, storage and transportation.
• Data collection for phenotyping human research subjects.
• Database development and management.
• Ambulatory blood pressure.
• Specialized analyses of serum and urine analytes including iothalamate.
• Training in methods of clinical and translational research including protocol development, human research subject, and institutional review board documentation.

Click here for Core Usage Request Form

Updated April 18, 2008   Maintained by Dedrian Copeland