The Center for Diabetes Translation Research (CDTR) has been awarded $3,735,000 to continue five years of funding by the National Institute for Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, a National Institutes of Health institute.
The grant is a collaboration of Washington University in St. Louis’ Brown School and Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, in partnership with the African American Collaborative Obesity Network, the National Congress of American Indians and the University of Missouri-Columbia.
The mission of CDTR, which is directed by Debra Haire-Joshu, the Joyce Wood Professor at the Brown School, is to eliminate disparities in diabetes by translating, disseminating, implementing and sustaining evidence-based research findings into real-world settings.
“We work with over 80 investigators across the country to help them develop and implement diabetes and obesity prevention and control studies,” Haire-Joshu said. “The grant money is designed to provide core services through dissemination and implementation, policy, health communication, and working with diverse African-American and American Indian populations. So we do not focus on one study — we assist a network of investigators in conducting hundreds of applied studies and publishing that work to the academic community and public at large.”
The center is home to a group of investigators conducting research focused around two interacting scientific themes: the root causes of diabetes disparities and the prevention of obesity as a major contributing cause of Type 2 diabetes.
It is positioned as the nexus for transdisciplinary team science and transformative diabetes research addressing multiple dimensions of diabetes disparities.