VCRC, Vasculitis Clinic Research Consortium
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded a $6.25 million, five-year grant for the establishment of the Vasculitis Clinical Research Consortium (VCRC). The multicenter VCRC will foster and facilitate clinical investigation in the inflammatory vasculitides, including Wegener’s granulomatosis. Dr. Peter Merkel, from Boston University, will serve as Director and Principal Investigator for the VCRC. Boston University will serve as the lead medical center.
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The VCRC will consist of four major U.S. vasculitis centers: Boston University, The Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Johns Hopkins University, and The Mayo Clinic. The centers will combine their clinical and research expertise with the resources of the General Clinical Research Centers at each site to form the core of the Network. Additionally, the combined strengths of several domestic and foreign secondary centers will be incorporated into the Network.
The VCRC will serve as a focal point for vasculitis research in the United States and internationally for both clinical investigators and patients. Activities will include:
- Developing a clinical data repository in collaboration with other Rare Disease Clinical Research Networks and the Rare Disease Data and Technology Coordinating Center.
- Building a vasculitis clinical specimen bank for storage of serum, plasma, cells, DNA and tissue samples linked to the clinical data repository.
- Enacting a national recruitment program in cooperation with various vasculitis patient advocacy groups.
- Utilizing the extensive resources of the General Clinical Research Centers at each Primary Network Site.
- Conducting a series of related longitudinal studies of novel biomarkers of vasculitis disease activity.
- Utilizing the VCRC and patient base to conduct Phase I and II clinical trials and creating the infrastructure to greatly facilitate the design and performance of other future trials.
- Establishing a Vasculitis Clinical Investigator Fellowship to provide a mechanism to support, train, and mentor fellows interested in establishing academic careers focused on vasculitis research. This aim will address the pressing need in academic medicine for the training and retaining of patient-oriented clinical investigators.
- Building and contributing to an electronic website resource with substantive content for clinicians, researchers, and patients.
The VCRC will provide a critical and far-reaching infrastructure for clinical research in all the inflammatory vasculitides where multiple international investigators, patients, pharmaceutical companies and others will partner with the Consortium to conduct research ranging from basic laboratory studies of the cause and pathophysiology of vasculitis to clinical epidemiology to advances in clinical trial design to conduct of multiple clinical trials of new therapies.
The Cleveland Clinic | Contact Us | February 14, 2005
