UC Denver gets $26M award from NIH
The University of Colorado Denver (UC Denver) has been awarded more than $26 million to participate in the National Institutes of Health's comprehensive study on the interaction of genes and the environment on children's health.
At a briefing today, National Institutes of Health (NIH) officials named UC Denver as one of 36 new and existing study centers which will recruit study volunteers from a total of 72 locations. When it is fully operational, the study is expected to include from 36 to 50 study centers in the planned 105 study locations throughout the United States.
The National Children's Study will follow a representative national sample of 100,000 children from before birth to age 21. Study volunteers will be recruited throughout the United States, from rural, urban, and suburban areas, from all income and educational levels, and from all racial groups. The study will investigate factors influencing the development of such conditions as autism, cerebral palsy, learning disabilities, birth defects, diabetes, asthma and obesity.
Authorized by Congress in the Children's Health Act of 2000, the National Children's Study is being conducted by a consortium of federal agencies. This includes two NIH institutes–the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences—the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
UC Denver will recruit participants from Douglas and Denver counties collecting genetic, biological, and environmental samples, and compile statistical information for study analyses investigating how genetic and environmental factors influence health and disease.
At the briefing today, NIH officials stated that the study would yield health information throughout its 25 year span. Within just a few years, the study would provide information on disorders of pregnancy and birth. Since women would be recruited before they give birth, and in some instances even before they become pregnant, the study would provide insight into the causes and contributors of preterm birth.
More than 500,000 premature infants are born each year in the United States. Infants born prematurely are at risk for early death and a variety of health problems, such as cerebral palsy, mental retardation and learning disabilities. Health care costs for preterm infants total $26 billion per year.
"The National Children's Study is unique because its size, longitudinal span, and broad scope will allow researchers to test hypotheses that would be impossible to assess in a shorter, smaller study," said Dana Dabelea, MD, PhD, principal investigator and associate professor in the Department of Epidemiology at the Colorado School of Public Health. "These include hypotheses related to the role, timing and interaction of multiple exposures operating throughout the life-course that may hold the clue to identifying preventive measures for health problems such as asthma, obesity, diabetes and autism."
The study will be conducted locally through a partnership between the Colorado School of Public Health, University of Colorado Denver School of Medicine and Battelle Memorial Institute. Dana Dabelea, MD, PhD, associate professor in the Department of Epidemiology, Colorado School of Public Health is the Principal Investigator. The UC Denver School of Medicine team includes Drs. Stephen Daniels and Susan Johnson in the Department of Pediatrics; Drs. Ronald Gibbs and Anne Lynch in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology; and Drs. Richard Hamman, Carolyn DiGuiseppi and Jill Litt in the Colorado School of Public Health.
Additional information about the National Children's Study is available from http://www.nationalchildrensstudy.gov%20target=open/.