University of Kentucky Diabetes Prevention COBRE (Wen RPL)

ABSTRACT- OVERALL The rapid rise in prevalence of prediabetes has put ~96 million US adults at very high risk of developing overt diabetes. Kentucky is a leading state for prediabetes prevalence, with over 1/3 of our residents affected by this harbinger disease. With the current standards of care, 5-10% of adults with prediabetes transition to diabetes each year, indicating that KY is on the brink of epidemic increases in our already high diabetes burden. These statistics highlight the critical need for developing fundamentally new strategies for diabetes prevention that will delay or even halt the transition from prediabetes to diabetes throughout Kentucky and our nation. The University of Kentucky proposes to establish a Center of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) focused on Diabetes Prevention (UK-DPC). This proposed transdisciplinary Center leverages support from numerous existing institutional entities including the University-wide Diabetes Research Priority Area, the Barnstable Brown Diabetes Center, and the College of Medicine-founded Alliance for Diabetes Research. This application has two overarching objectives: (1) to strengthen the University’s foundation of diabetes prevention research by expanding and modernizing thematically-focused infrastructure in this area across the campus; (2) to couple new infrastructure with personalized mentor teams to develop a world-class cohort of junior investigators with expertise in cutting-edge concepts, technologies, and analyses of diabetes prevention strategies that will position these investigators for success in securing independent funding from the NIH. Our would be the only existing Diabetes Prevention COBRE. The UK-DPC proposes to augment diabetes prevention research across campus by establishing two new Cores. The Diabetes Prevention Data Science Solutions Core, led by diabetes investigators with expertise in Bioinformatics and Epidemiology, will enhance experimental design and expand interpretive value of all projects in this thematic area. The Diabetes Prevention Phenotyping Core, led by a physician scientist and a translational researcher with expertise in state-of-the-art human and animal phenotyping, will characterize prediabetes onset in pre-clinical and clinical models, leveraging expertise available through our CTSA-funded unit. To achieve our objectives, we will focus on Aim 1: To foster a synergistic and innovative environment for the advancement of basic and clinical research projects in diabetes prevention research. Aim 2: To mentor and foster the development of junior faculty into independently funded principal investigators under the research theme of diabetes prevention. The expected outcome of this cohesive UK-DPC is an increase in the diversity and number of junior faculty researchers who are successful in addressing critically important research questions in diabetes prevention. New infrastructure, including core capabilities, and intentional fostering of a collaborative culture of mentor/RPL/core teams will complement existing instructional strengths to establish University of Kentucky as a national leader in diabetes prevention research.