Research Core

 

Administrative Core


Director:

Kevin D. Cooper, MD
Phone: 216-844-3111
Email: kevin.cooper @UHhospitals.org
Associate Directors:

Mahmoud A. Ghannoum, PhD, EMBA
Enrichment Director:
 Thomas S. McCormick, PhD

The Administrative Core is comprised of the SDRC Director , the Associate Directors, the Enrichment Director, the Administrator, the Staff Assistant, the Department Adminisrator, the Executive Committee and the Pilot and Feasibility reviewers.

The aims of the Core are to:

  1. integrate the components of and activities of the SDRC
  2. manage fiscal operations
  3. coordinate core facility and pilot and feasibility awarded programs
  4. implement an Enrichment Program
  5. foster new SDRC initiative
     

The Administrative Core solicits, reviews, awards, and guides and monitors the progress of the Pilot and Feasibility Studies. It also ensures accountability of the Research Service Cores, and provides leadership to SDRC members with regard to evolving opportunities and expertise available for skin diseases research.

The Director has demonstrated a sustained committment to excellence in research and training and is well qualified to manage all aspects of the SDRC as needed. Drs. Cooper, Ghannoum, McCormick and Gilliam are active in many key institutional committees which help them integrate the Case SDRC into the fabric of the University and to leverage opportunities for the SDRC.

The Administrative Core effectively coordinates the Research Cores, the P&F's and the Enrichment Programs. The Core also instituted and manages a highly successful minority research program, and coordinates the lectures and seminars that are key for trainees and the research milieu on cutaneous biology and skin diseases. The SDRC publishes a newsletter (Skinergy), a Core Services Directory and a brochure. An active conference program is highly collaborative, working with other CWRU Centers, such as the Comprehensive Cancer Center, the Center for AIDS Research, and the GCRC, and was instrumental in coordinating the skin biology community's component of hte recently awarded multimillion dollar Clinical Tissure Engineering Center. This Core provides the integrated functioning of the SDRC as a whole.

For more information regarding the Administrative Core, contact Minja Greisser atmag28@case.edu. 

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Morphology Core (A)

 
Director:
 Nicole Ward, PhD
Phone: 216-368-0533
Email: nicole.ward@case.edu
Associate Director:

Kord Honda , MD

The Morphology Core (Core A) has existed since the beginning of the SDRC at our institution. It has been consistently a heavily utilized Core providing a diverse array of services to a large number of SDRC faculty and their associates. In the current proposal, the principal aim of the CMMC is to continue to provide state-of-the-art services and expertise to SDRC investigators using a wide variety of morphological and immunologic studies in which microscopic analysis plays a central role. The SDRC faculty responsible for Morphology operations provides access to highly trained technical personnel in very well equipped research laboratories. An additional goal is to foster exchange of technical information among SDRC members and to encourage the sharing of resources.

Key features of this Core are its flexibility in adapting to the evolving needs of the SDRC faculty, and its comprehensive and innovative range of services designed to support the needs of both proposed and future SDRC-related morphological studies.

These services fall into three specific aims:

  1. to provide state-of-the-art services, expertise, and cost savings
  2. to provide morphologic techniques and expertise that facilitate a “pipeline” of translational research and interdisciplinary projects involving skin research
  3. to promote career development with a skin-centered emphasis for research residents, fellows, and faculty members by helping them to learn state-of-the-art morphologic techniques as they build a body of preliminary data for research projects.

For more information regarding the Morphology Core, contact Nicole Ward, PhD, at the information provided above

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Cell Culture and Molecualr Technology Core (B)

 
Director:
 Pratima Karnik, PhD
Phone: 216-368-0209
Email: pratima.karnik@case.edu

The SDRC Cell Culture and Molecular Technology Core (CCMTC) has played an important role in facilitating skin-based research activity at Case School of Medicine throughout its fifteen year history. During this time, the Core has provided basic services and training, state-of-the-art services, facilities, and expertise. The CCMTC has now developed into a major hub of research activity on campus and has an active role in introducing new investigators to work on dermatological disease. The Core is heavily engaged in providing a wide range of cultured skin cells to investigators, and in providing training in cell culture methodology and molecular biology technology.

The three major missions of the CCMTC are:

  1. to provide state-of-the-art cell culture and molecular technology services and expertise, in addition to cost savings to the SDRC membership at Case School of Medicine, and to the larger community of researchers affiliated with the Case School of Medicine. In addition to the substantial list of technology that is presently offered, we will now provide access, expertise and training in advanced real-time fluorescent imaging for visualization of intracellular protein-protein interaction (FRET, FRAP, etc.), chip array analysis, and proteomics
  2. to provide cell and molecular technology, and expertise, that facilitates and encourages the translation of basic science projects to the bedside
  3. to promote career development with a goal of retaining talented, young PhD and MD investigators in the dermatologic sciences. This is achieved by providing training to new investigators and senior investigators in technologies that will facilitate investigation of dermatologic diseases and by providing a forum for discussion of dermatologic science. 

For more information regarding the Cell Culture and Molecular Technology Core, contact Pratima Karnik, PhD at the information provided above.

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Translational Research Core (C)

 
Director:
 Neil J. Korman, MD, PhD
Co-Director:
 Elma Baron, MD
Phone: 216-368-4971
Email: edb4@case.edu

The Translational Research Core is designed to promote and facilitate human subject research in skin biology and skin disease.

The aims of the Core are as follows:

  1. To provide a cost-efficient, central resource to identify and recruit volunteer to participate in human in vivo studies and/or donate blood or skin biopsy tissue for ex vivo/in vivo investigations. The Core performs procedures such as skin exposure to simulated solar radiation, hapten sensitization and elicitation, non-invasive monitoring (e.g., ultrasonography, chromometry, transepidermal water loss measurement) and tissue acquisition (venipuncture, punch & keratome biopsies). The utilization of these functions are expanded mainly by active interactions with physicians who refer patients and with other investigators through the Case Comprehensive Cancer Center, the General Clinical Research Center, the Center for AIDS Research, and other research foci within the University.
  2. To provide overall management of clinical trials of novel therapies brought from the laboratory to the bedside with emphasis on providing optimal translational and clinical data. A group with expertise in general trial design as well as data and safety monitoring are assembled to efficiently direct or conduct high quality studies that arise through interaction with various investigators interested in skin research. Additionally, interactions between clinical and laboratory researchers are fostered to insert adjunctive laboratory studies to clarify mechanisms of action therapies and pathomechanisms of disease.
  3. To foster career development of young investigators and junior faculty in the area of human subject-based skin research. This involves providing support at multiple levels (e.g. IRB submission, protocol design, data analysis, manuscript preparation) depending on investigator needs.

For more information regarding the Translational Research Core, contact Elma Baron, MD, at the information provided above.

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Animal Experimentation Core (D)

 
 
Director:

Tom McCormick, PhD
Phone: 216-368-0238 
Email: tsm4@case.edu

The Skin Diseases Research Center Animal Experimentation Core is directed by Thomas S. McCormick, PhD. The Animal Core facilitates investigator use of development of animal models of skin disease. Creation of new models of diseased skin, characterization of transgenic and knock-out mice, and skin cancer models using UV simulated solar radiation, and chemical mortagenesis/initiation, and promotion are all popular programs among the Core users. Quality procurement, handling, and interpretation of spontaneous phenotypes or those that are elicited via barrier description, contact dermatitis, UV, or microorganisms, or or production of skin and skin tumors facilitates histology, homegenates, and/or cell suspensions, RNA, and DNA that can be used in flow cytometry, microarray, or proteomic experiments. Experience with athymic nude and SCID mice enhances experimentation in tissue implantation models, either using murine tumor cells or xenogenic transplants of human diseased skin. Also new is a panel of wounding/healing techniques, and assistance in applying small animal imaging/animal handling to skin models.

For more information regarding the Animal Experimentation Core D, contact Tom McCormick, PhD at the information provided above.

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