Resources at U-M

The physical resources available to SCCOR investigators at the University of Michigan Medical Center consist of both clinical facilities and research laboratories. T he University of Michigan Medical Center (UMMC) is an 886 bed hospital which serves as a primary care and referral facility for the State of Michigan . The University of Michigan has a long standing track-record of excellence in the investigation of acute lung injury and ARDS. The medical center contains a 20 bed critical care medicine unit (CCMU), a 10 bed coronary care unit (CCU), a 20 bed surgical intensive care unit (SICU), a 10 bed thoracic surgery intensive care unit (TICU), a 10 bed neurologic/neurosurgical intensive care unit (NICU), and a 10 bed trauma and burn intensive care unit (TBICU). Patients are recruited from all of these units for participation in SCCOR clinical protocols. The Outpatient Pulmonary Clinic is located in Taubman Center , adjacent to the University of Michigan Hospital. The General Clinical Research Center (GCRC) is located within the University of Michigan Hospital and is funded by the NIH to support clinical research at the University of Michigan . It houses a 13 bed inpatient unit and contains a procedure area where outpatient bronchoscopy can be performed.. The Center for the Advancement of Clinical Research (CACR) located at the School of Public Health and has been funded by the Medical School to develop infrastructure for multicenter and single center clinical trials. The Biometrics and Outcomes Research Core (BORC) occupies 11 offices with 1400 square feet of space on the fourth floor of the School of Public Health II . The University of Michigan Medical Center, the GCRC and the CACR are well adapted to clinical research and the personnel involved are active participants in numerous research programs.

In addition to the outstanding clinical facilities and patient population from which to recruit patients, the University of Michigan has a well-developed infrastructure in which to perform clinical trials in ARDS . As part of the ARDS Network and the previous ALI SCOR, Michigan has developed a comprehensive infrastructure which allows for the screening, recruitment, and follow-up of large numbers of patients with ARDS. This infrastructure include a Project Manager (Ronald Dechert, RTT, PhD) to oversee the clinical operation and research nurse coordinators who actively screen, enroll, and follow patients on a daily basis, as well as a broad base of ancillary staff. The University of Michigan has also put in place a comprehensive Oracle-based patient database that allows for accurate data entry, data sharing, and data analysis, and has a well-developed APACHE III data based in which to accurately assess and compare severity of illness.

The laboratory facilities at Michigan in which to perform cellular and molecular studies are extensive. Five thousand square feet of contiguous, fully-equipped laboratory space is available in the Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine Division for the performance of these studies, while an additional 3000 sq. ft. of laboratory space is used in the Department of Pathology for this work. In addition to SCCOR investigator lab space, a number of key Biomedical Core facilities are utilized in this program. Specifically, these include a Laser Capture Microdissection Core, a Flow Cytometry Core, a Molecular Biology Core, a Gene Therapy Core, a Protein Structure and Design Core, a Transgenic Animal Core, and an NIH-funded Microarray and Proteomics Core. These cores are used extensively by SCCOR investigators.