Research Project
10251962
Oklahoma Rheumatic Disease Research Cores Center: Overall Project Summary The Oklahoma Rheumatic Disease Research Cores Center (ORDRCC) unites 25 established Center Investigators, 22 junior center investigators (11 within and 11 outside Oklahoma) and a newly proposed Reichlin/Capra Scholar program to develop early-stage investigators with outstanding promise in rheumatic disease research. The mission of the ORDRCC is to optimize interactions between basic, clinical and analytic scientists focused on deciphering pathogenesis, prediction, prevention and precision therapeutic selection in rheumatic disease. As the foundation for this mission, the ORDRCC has developed some of the largest existing cross-sectional and longitudinal collections of SLE, Sjogren?s, and rheumatoid arthritis. With a CAP- certified Biorepository and electronic clinical research management system, the ORDRCC continues to expand these large, well-characterized collections and to build others in osteoarthritis, undifferentiated connective tissue disease and autoimmune rheumatic disease pregnancies. The ORDRCC-supported collections and biorepository infrastructure are critical resources for many established rheumatic disease investigators and inter-institutional rheumatic disease collaborations, and have helped launch the independent careers of 27 former New Investigators. Without ORDRCC support, these collections would be unavailable, as would the basic infrastructure that enables the Biorepository to serve several NIH-sponsored and other investigator- initiated clinical trials at a fraction of the cost of a commercial biorepository. The Clinical Characterization and Biorepository Core (CCBC) which houses these collections, also provides clinical research units to aid in study recruitment, regulatory assistance for junior investigators and Scholars, and translational informatics to help visualize complex datasets of clinical and molecular data. The newly revised Human Phenotyping Core (HPC) empowers ORDRCC investigators to use the latest high-content phenotyping methodologies for precision medicine approaches by providing experienced technical personnel, proven standard operating procedures and training for sample preparation, assay development, data QC, and analytical assistance. The HPC helps ORDRCC investigators perform and analyze high-dimensional cytometry, single-cell transcriptomics and proteomics, high-content flow cytometry for functional immune response assays, molecular phenotyping by transcriptomics, and high-throughput testing of soluble biomarkers. Together the CCBC and HPC will integrate clinical and molecular information to identify molecularly homogeneous subsets of subjects for studies or trials. The Administrative Core serves as the central management and communication hub for the ORDRCC and coordinates a multi-disciplinary enrichment program, including a Rheumatic Disease Research Forum, a vibrant and successful Pilot Projects program, a new Proposal Development Core to assist investigators with developing robust manuscripts and competitive grant applications and a new Expanding Rheumatic Disease Research Colloquium to forge interactions between ORDRCC scientists and investigators from other fields.
