KU centers net $16 million
The Kansas Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities Center and the KU Medical Center have secured grant funding worth more than $16 million combined.
The Kansas MRDDRC received a five-year $6.35 million grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development to continue its internationally recognized research into the causes and treatment of mental retardation and other developmental disabilities. The National Institute of Health awarded the KU Medical Center more than $10 million to fund research on liver function.
MRDDRC
Known as a core grant, the money allows the center to provide administrative, scientific and technical infrastructure to support the work of 65 research scientists at the KU Medical Center, KU's Lawrence campus and the Parsons and Kansas City, Kan., research sites."The Kansas MRDDRC is unique among developmental disabilities research centers in part because of our commitment to biobehavioral research, " said Steve Warren, center director.
The grants are highly competitive and must be renewed every five years on the basis of a national competition and rigorous review by National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. The Kansas MRDDRC, which has been funded continuously for 40 years, is one of only 14 national mental retardation research centers designated and funded by the federal agency.
KU Medical Center
The new grant will be distributed among five faculty members in the KU School of Medicine's department of pharmacology, toxicology and therapeutics to study the role of nuclear receptors in liver health and disease."This research will tell us a lot about some important diseases," University Distinguished Professor and Department Chair Curtis D. Klaassensaid.
Nuclear receptors are proteins found in every liver cell that initiate many of the organ's functions.
"Just like a thermostat tells the furnace what to do, these nuclear receptors tell the liver what to do," Klaassen said.
These sensors are involved in the liver's major roles of storing carbohydrates and fat; controlling blood cholesterol and blood clotting factors; metabolizing drugs and detoxifying and removing poisonous chemicals from the body.
Studying these receptors and exploring how they might be manipulated by drugs, Klaassen said, could lead to new treatments for a variety of disorders such as diabetes and atherosclerosis, the hardening of the arteries.
Research in this still new area of study also seeks to determine how genetics can influence nuclear receptors and liver function. Klaassen said some individuals might have deficient or super-efficient nuclear receptors that influence how drugs are eliminated by the liver and how patients respond to them.
Identifying the genetic markers of these conditions, Klaassen said, will allow for better treatment of patients.
"This all leads to personalized medicine," he said. "A physician will be able to take that information to select which drug to use, which will make drugs more effective and reduce toxicity."
Over the past three years, the department has added facutly members who specialize in this field of study. Klaassen and Professor Yu-Jui Yvonne Wan have recruited experts from Yale University to the University of Zurich, Switzerland to assemble their research team at the KU Medical Center.
Assistant professors Grace L. Guo and Li Wang will study how nuclear receptors influence metabolism in the liver. Professor Bruno Hagenbuch will research the receptors' role in liver uptake, how the organ removes chemicals from the blood. Assistant Professor Bryan L. Copple will study how nuclear receptors relate to hepatoxicity and liver repair. Assistant Professor Xiaobo Zhong will examine the role of genetic variations in nuclear receptors on metabolic diseases.
The NIH grant will be paid over the course of the next four years, in the amount of roughly $2 million each year. Klaassen referred to the funding as a "mentoring grant" that is designed to provide a source of funding that might not otherwise be available to researchers early in their careers.
Next year, the Department of Pharmacology, Toxicology and Therapeutics will move into the Medical Center's new Biomedical Research Center at the northeast corner of 39th and Rainbow. The $57.7-million, 205,000-square foot facility will house 80 separate laboratories and a liver center. With the move, the department plans to hire six additional faculty members over the next three years.
Email Page
Print Page