The National Institute of Health recently awarded the University of Texas Austin School of Nursing a $2.4 million grant to establish a new research center that will largely focus on treating individual, family, and community chronic health conditions. As one of two institutions in the U.S. to receive this award, UT Austin will be a national model to future research centers of this type.
The new center, to be called The Center for Trans-Disciplinary Collaborative Research in Self-Management Science (TCRSS) will be designed as a collaborative, trans-disciplinary research center that will not only focus on research relating to nursing, but will have research spanning over 14 different disciplines including pharmacy, medicine, law and business.
The Dean of the School of Nursing, Alexa Stuifbergen, said that "such collaboration will not only yield cutting-edge science, it will closely fit the actual clinical environment of health care and be readily applicable to clinical practice for the improvement of health."
(Photo courtesy of Wikimedia)
Although the TCRSS will encompass a wide variety of disciplines, a large focus of the center will be on researching treatments for chronic illnesses. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention reports that chronic diseases affect 117 million adults, nearly half of the adult population in the U.S., and that 75 percent of health care dollars go to treating chronic illnesses. Even with this high percentage of funding, many chronic illnesses do not have permanent cures and 48 percent of deaths annually are caused by chronic illnesses.
Director of the center Miyong Kim stated that "nursing science is situated at the heart of health care transformation. The U.S. population is growing older and becoming more diverse, technological advances are spreading rapidly and widely, and the core conditions of people's daily lives are changing dramatically." By having a facility with diverse research disciplines, the center plans to develop new and innovative solutions to improve health outcomes by incorporating the changes of the community.
Alexa Stuifbergen also said that everyday lifestyle choices account for a large percentage of one's medical treatment. A portion of the research in the TCRSS will be aimed at teaching patients self-management strategies to help them understand how their illnesses affect their lives as well as helping them learn to control their symptoms, ultimately leading them to have better health related outcomes. The TCRSS plans to merge innovative technical and practical methods of teaching self-management while also providing research training to doctoral students so that they can effectively become involved in collaborative research activities.
If you are a research nurse or any other life science researcher working in the Austin area and would like to check out the latest tools, technology, techniques, and equipment availble to the medical research and life science industry, then we invite you to come to the 5th annual UT Austin BioResearch Product Faire™ on Tuesday, January 27, 2015. This event is the best way to get connected and stay up-to-date with the technology within the world of medical research.
Biotechnology Calendar, Inc. has more than 20 years of experience producing tradeshows at research universities around the United States. To participate as either an exhibitor or researcher in the upcoming 5th annual BioResearch Product Faire™ event at UT Austin, and to learn more about funding information, visit the link below:
