GENERAL CLINICAL RESEARCH CENTER

The proposed Charity Hospital-Tulane-Louisiana State University (LSU) GCRC
will serve as a facility for patient-based applied and basic research. The
specific aims of the GCRC are: (1) to provide a well staffed facility that
will allow in-hospital and outpatient care for patients who are subjects in
research projects; (2) to allow these projects to be performed under
controlled conditions with scientific accuracy; (3) to support a Core
Laboratory which will provide assays for many of the researchers who use
the facilities as a measure to increase productivity and reduce costs; (4)
to improve the quality of patient care in the overall Charity Hospital-
Tulane-LSU Medical Complex by applying the advances made in these clinical
research endeavors to disease diagnosis and therapy; (5) to provide
training in the methodology and design of good clinical research projects
as a form of teaching for post-graduate research residents, interns,
medical students, and fellows, nurses and other paramedical personnel in
the facility. The program stresses: (1) a strong interdisciplinary effort by both
medical schools and by several departments within each school; (2) a strong
letter of commitment from Charity Hospital and the participating medical
schools with regard to housing of the unit (Charity Hospital) plus
renovation costs; and (3) quality (predominantly NIH funded or pending
funded projects) by most of the leading investigators in both medical
schools and at Charity Hospital. The Charity/Tulane/LSU GCRC will be
predominantly an adult unit but with a small pediatrics and "contagious"
areas within the same facilities.