GALVESTON, Texas - Research ranging from heaven to earth is beginning to take shape in the General Clinical Research Center at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston following Hurricane Ike.
The UTMB GCRC is part of a national network of centers whose mission is to provide research infrastructure for clinical investigators who receive grant support from the National Institutes of Health and other federal agencies. The center handles many types of studies that involve human subjects. Operating at UTMB for the past 45 years, it consists of two major facilities: The general unit, known simply as the GCRC, and the NASA-funded Flight Analog Research Unit. "More than 100 clinical investigators use the outpatient and inpatient facilities of the GCRC to conduct their patient-oriented research," said Dr. Don W. Powell, GCRC director and associate dean of research. The center accommodates more than 3,000 outpatient visits and 2,000 inpatient days each year. The GCRC resumed operations on Oct. 13 when it had five outpatient visits. "We are proud that we have been able to resume operations exactly one month following the storm," Powell said. "This signifies a return to normalcy that is good for the morale of UTMB faculty and staff because we are carrying out one of the functions (research) of an academic medical center." Ongoing research projects resuming this month include an influenza vaccine study by Dr. Christine Turley, an inpatient study involving cocaine-dependency by Kathryn Cunningham and a study by NASA scientists to develop countermeasures to microgravity in space flight. "These studies have been able to resume much earlier than expected," said Lori Wiseman, GCRC administrator. The GCRC also is offering research space and nursing and dietary support for UTMB researchers who no longer have access to their own clinics. The GCRC plans to open a satellite clinic in Texas City to make it easier for outpatient subjects to participate in clinical research. Sister institutions have also lent a hand to UTMB researchers. Melinda S. Moore, assistant program director of UTMB's GCRC, said, "Many researchers were forced to suspend ongoing clinical studies. Consequently, subjects and patients were without a way to obtain study drugs and interventions." The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston stepped in to help by providing access to its clinical research unit at Memorial Hermann Hospital. Madeline Ottosen, associate director of the clinical trials office at UT-Houston, and Dr. Linda Brown and Kathy Franco at Memorial Hermann Hospital, "worked to overcome the regulatory and institutional barriers of human research so that our studies could continue," Moore said. A study in its critical final year of a five-year grant from the National Institute of Aging was the first to be moved to Houston. Dr. Randy Urban, the primary investigator, and Moore, the co-investigator, are studying therapies for older men with hypogonadism. "At the time of the storm, we had five men enrolled with each subject slated to complete their final monthly testing session," she said. "The data from these final five subjects would have been lost had we not been able to establish this important collaboration."