To kick off National Diabetes Awareness Month, Ohio University's College of Osteopathic Medicine (OU-COM) announced that it received a $221,250 grant from the National Institutes of Health to fund research on a new drug that could prevent type 1 diabetes.
Kelly McCall, assistant professor of endocrinology at OU, will lead the team of researchers, who will first test whether viral infections have an influence on the onset of type 1 diabetes. If they find a correlation, they will begin clinical trials to test their newly developed drug, Compound 10, which would block the particular signaling pathway involved in the onset of type 1 diabetes.
Nearly 10 percent of people in southeast Ohio have this disease, and the rate is increasing because of the region's economic status, according to the Appalachian Rural Health Institute Diabetes/Endocrine Center's website.
If you look at the county-wide prevalence of diabetes in southeast Ohio
it correlates with the economic status of that county said Frank Schwartz, a professor of endocrinology. The socioeconomic stress of not knowing where your next meal is or whether you're going to be able to pay the rent raises all the different stress hormones that contribute to obesity and diabetes.
The university recruited Schwartz to help establish the Appalachian Rural Health Institute Diabetes/Endocrine Center eight years ago.
The Diabetes Center was initially established with effort to increase patient care increase patient access to care
increase training for the medical students and residents who are training here at OU and also to increase the research effort
Schwartz said.
The center is one of only two in the country to train diabetes specialists. In the last six years, 18 to 24 scientist faculty members across the university have participated in a variety of diabetes-related projects, Schwartz said.
For six years, diabetes educators, social workers and dieticians have shared an effort to enhance diabetes education and research through ARHI's Diabetes Coalition, which meets once a quarter.
According to the ADA fact sheet, the total cost of diabetes care in the U.S. for 2007 was $174 billion. The ARHI Free Clinic, established in 2006, invites local uninsured diabetes sufferers every first Tuesday of the month to be seen by a physician for free.
One of the visions for OU-COM and Ohio University is to become a premier research institution
McCall said. I see that this grant is recognition at the federal level. OU is becoming a major research institution.
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Culture
Olivia Young
