A proposal to establish a new Diabetes Research and Training Center (DRTC) at UAB has been funded by NIH/NIDDK. The goal of the 5 year, $9 million project will be to promote excellence in diabetes research, to decrease morbidity/mortality and increase quality of life for diabetes patients, and to provide an outstanding environment for student training and for faculty career development in diabetes research.

The DRTC will be led by Director Timothy Garvey, MD, assisted by Stuart Frank, MD, Associate Director for biomedical research, and Catarina Kiefe, MD, PhD, Associate Director for prevention and control. The Director and Associate Directors will join other key DRTC faculty, Drs. David Allison, John Corbett, and  Victor Darley-Usmar, in comprising the DRTC Leadership Committee.

Investigators in the project are grouped into eight research areas of excellence: (1) molecular signaling, (2) metabolism, (3) vascular biology/inflammation, (4) lipids/ kopoproteins/atherosclerosis, (5) microvascular disbetes complications, (6) epidemiology/genetics, (7) interventions, trials, and community-based research, and (8) health services research.

Other Department of Medicine faculty who are involved in the project are Drs. Mona Fouad, Cora Lewis, David Calhoun, John Chatham, Louis Dell’Italia, Michelle Martin, and Monika Safford.