>>USF's Krischer and Team Play Key Role in NIH Initiative to Prevent Diabetes in Children

Tampa, FL (September 5, 2006) -- A research scientist and his team at the University of South Florida have been awarded the ninth single largest research grant given in 2005 by the National Institutes of Health*, the most prestigious funding source for medical research.

 

Jeffrey Krischer, PhD, of USF Health’s College of Medicine’s Department of Pediatrics received $20.1 million to establish and direct a data coordinating center to identify environmental triggers of Type 1 diabetes. The center receives results from clinical study sites across the United States, and Dr. Krischer is responsible for all data coordination and analysis for the critical research into the causes of diabetes in children. This grant is larger than any individual faculty grants received at much older institutions, including Harvard and Duke.

 

For the NIH, Dr. Krischer’s work is often cited as an example of the “NIH roadmap,” the initiative to bring the discoveries of basic science to preventing or treating disease. “By coordinating these trials, we’re re-engineering clinical research,” Dr. Krischer said. “Almost every major effort worldwide to prevent juvenile diabetes comes through this team. Some day we might just prevent this disease, and it’ll come through here."

 

Dr. Krischer, professor and chief of the Division of Bioinformatics and Biostatistics, Department of Pediatrics, has attracted more than $27 million in federal research grants. He directs the USF Pediatrics Epidemiology Center, which is the data coordinating and technology center for NIH’s TEDDY study—The Environmental Determinants of Diabetes in the Young.

 

In addition, Dr. Krischer is principal investigator for the development a second major NIH data coordinating center, which supports the Rare Diseases Clinical Research Network, a research cooperative addressing the challenges inherent in diagnosing and treating rare diseases such as aplastic anemia, myelodysplastic syndromes and hereditary idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. Earlier this year, the NIH announced a five-year, $71-million initiative by its rare diseases network to launch 20 studies at more than 50 sites.

 

* As of May 2006, compiled by The Scientist.

 

 

 

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USF Health is a partnership of the colleges of public health, nursing and medicine; the schools of basic biomedical sciences and physical therapy; and the USF Physicians Group. It is a partnership dedicated to the promise of creating a new model of health and health care.