Overview
High-Quality, Patient-Oriented Research
The General Clinical Research Center (GCRC) at the Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center is devoted to the study and treatment of complex childhood and adult diseases
It is one of 52 GCRCs and 24 Clinical and Translational Science Award Consortium member institutions throughout the United States funded by the National Institutes of Health to conduct clinical research. Since its inception in 1963, more than 25,000 infants, children, adolescents and adults have received care in the Cincinnati Children's GCRC.
The General Clinical Research Center fosters the growth of medical research and good research skills of investigators. It provides all of the modern resources of clinical investigation, including biochemical studies, electron microscopy, molecular biology and genetics, and mass spectrometry. Additional resources are available at the Center for Clinical and Translational Science and Training, CCTST.
Multidisciplinary groups of pediatric, surgical, obstetrical, and internal medicine subspecialists have drawn on these resources to conduct research studies in the following special interest areas:
- Bone mineral accretion in infants, children, and adults
- Diabetes mellitus in both children and adults
- Chronic cholestatic liver disease and its complications
- Growth in chronic disease
- Growth in specific disorders, such as growth hormone resistance
- Obesity and body composition changes with age
- Gaucher disease
- Isoflavones
- Cystic fibrosis
- Behavioral studies
Utilization Statistics
During the grant year ending November 30, 2007, 206 investigators with 103 active protocols used resources supplied by the General Clinical Research Center at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center.
Research participants comprised 4,324 outpatient visits and were hospitalized for 177 inpatient days in the research center.
Although the primary mission of the center is to provide an environment conducive to performance of patient-oriented research, non-research patients also used the inpatient and outpatient facilities.
Industry-sponsored participants accounted for 28 inpatient bed days and 321 outpatient visits, while non-research patients comprised 1,467 inpatient bed days and 12,773 outpatient visits. A large part of the inpatient and outpatient utilization was for studies initiated by externally funded investigators who needed research center resources to perform their patient-oriented research projects.
The research projects led to 46 article publications in reputable peer-reviewed journals, such as the Journal of Pediatrics and the Journal of The American Medical Association.
For more information about the General Clinical Research Center at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, please contact Andrea Smith, 513-636-4273, andrea.smith@cchmc.org. The research center is available 24 hours a day and seven days a week. It is located in Location A, third floor, south.
