Baylor College of Medicine is designated NIH Diabetes Center

Map showing the locations of the 17 NIH designated diabetes centers

HOUSTON -- (January 23, 2008) -- The National Institutes of Health has designated Baylor College of Medicine in Houston as a Diabetes and Endocrinology Research Center, providing the College with the resources to advance efforts in finding a cure for the disease that affects millions of people from all walks of life.

BCM is the only NIH diabetes center in the state of Texas, and one of only 17 in the country. As a member of the network, BCM will collaborate with other centers across the country and act as a national resource on diabetes and diabetes research.

"As the only NIH-designated diabetes center in Texas and in this part of the country, Baylor scientists will play a major role in advancing diabetes research," said Dr. Peter G. Traber, president and CEO of BCM. "This designation will allow Baylor to greatly expand its established program in diabetes research and to focus the collaborative efforts of our experts on the prevention, treatment and eventually, cure, of this disease."

NIH Network

BCM's strengths in the research areas of nutrient metabolism, transcriptional regulation and behavioral research, as well as the College's ability to develop a multi-institutional approach to enhance community awareness, qualified BCM for the designation.

Joining the NIH network of programs will give BCM up to $5 million over five years to accelerate its diabetes initiatives. Dr. Lawrence Chan, Betty Rutherford Chair for Diabetes Research at BCM, will serve as director of the center. Dr. Morey Haymond, professor of pediatrics, and Dr. Ming-Jer Tsai, professor of molecular and cellular biology, will serve as co-directors.

"The designation will allow Baylor's diabetes program to grow, especially in the areas of clinical and translational research and in genomic medicine and metabolomics as related to diabetes," said Chan, also chief of the division of diabetes, endocrinology and metabolism at BCM. "This also will enable us to establish new collaborative research programs across all clinical and basic science departments and potentially bring more research dollars to the center."

Diabetes Resource

The biomedical research base for the center consists of 57 researchers in 10 different departments of the college. The designation allows BCM to serve as a resource for the more than 1 million Texans affected by diabetes and increase awareness through community lectures and symposiums. The center will support new investigators, established investigators with high-risk, high impact projects in diabetes and also investigators in non-diabetes research who wish to pursue a diabetes-related project.

"This national recognition and support for increasing Baylor's role in diabetes research comes as the college is involved in recruiting another leading diabetes researcher through the McNair Scholars program," said Dr. Jay Stein, executive vice president and executive dean of BCM. "These significant developments emphasize the college's commitment to a critical area of medical science that affects millions of people across the country."

More than 20,000 square feet of space in the new Margaret M. Alkek Building for Biomedical Research will be dedicated to diabetes and metabolism research, which has been identified by the College as an area of focus. The eight-floor research building, located on the main BCM campus, was completed earlier this month, and scientists are now moving into the building.

The centers are part of an integrated program of diabetes and related endocrinology and metabolism research overseen by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, a part of the NIH.

There are only 17 centers nationwide. Ten are biomedical research-focused centers and seven are training centers that have an added component of translational and clinical research. All are required to have an existing base of high quality diabetes-related research as a primary requirement for establishment of either type of center.