Two University researchers, working on a similar area in the field of diabetes, did not consult with each other about their work, missing an opportunity to share their advancements and learn from each other’s research.
“(It was a) simple lack of knowledge as to who’s in the lab next door,” said Peter Arvan, head of the University’s Metabolism, Endocrinology and Diabetes Division.
To solve that problem, the University has opened a new center that unites several campus research communities that fight diabetes, the deadly disease that afflicts 7 percent of Americans.
The Michigan Comprehensive Diabetes Center, launched in September, aims to serve as an umbrella organization to share information between five University centers that previously worked independently.
Diabetes can cause severe complications such as blindness, kidney disease and nerve damage. Michigan has one of the highest rates of diabetes in the country. In 2002 alone, about 590,000 adults in the state were diagnosed with the disease, according to the Michigan Department of Community Health.
“Coordination of diabetes care and research is going to be increasingly important as the epidemic of Type 2 diabetes and its complications continue to grow in Michigan,” said Frank Brosius, head of the University’s Animal Models of Diabetes Complications Consortium, part of the MCDC. “I wish this had been developed a decade ago.”
Eva Feldman, director of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation Center for the Study of Complications in Diabetes, now part of MCDC, said the center will help to increase communication among researchers about the most recent findings.
A portion of a $44-million donation by William and Delores Brehm will help fund the center. William Brehm, a University alum from the class of 1950, has a special interest in diabetes research: His wife, Delores, has the disease.
The rest of the cost will come from the Medical School.
The center is also organizing a grant program to spur cross-disciplinary cooperation on diabetes research. The program will divide $100,000 between two researchers from different disciplines.
The grants will encourage collaboration between fields as diverse as molecular biology and engineering, said Arvan, who will serve as the center’s interim director.
Arvan estimates that more than 50 researchers are currently working in the MCDC alone, and about six new researchers may be recruited to work in the new center.
The MCDC’s headquarters will eventually be the University’s new Kellogg Eye Center, which will be near the medical campus. The center will not have a physical facility until then.
One way the center is already encouraging cooperation between researchers is through the Grand Rounds Lecture Series. The lecture series will act as a forum at which state-of-the-art diabetes research can be presented along with research on more specific topics.
The series will begin next January and will offer one lecture per month.