Fall 2008 - Cleveland Clinic Lerner Research Institute

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Lerner research instituteA Bridge to Better Patient CareSerpil Erzurum, MDAs Chair of the Institute’s Departmentof Pathobiology, Serpil Erzurum, MD,is a well-known researcher andclinician involved in the causesand treatment of asthma. She alsoinvestigates the causes of pulmonaryhypertension, a debilitating respiratorydisease that’s particularly deadlyamong women.She is among the ranks of clinician-scientists — medicalprofessionals with one foot planted firmly in the laboratory andthe other next to patients’ bedsides. In addition to supervisingPathobiology and its laboratories, Dr. Erzurum is Co-Director ofCleveland Clinic’s Asthma Center and sees patients through itsDepartment of Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care Medicine.“I really see the benefit of an environment that lets clinicians andresearchers talk and share their experiences. You can learn somuch from one another in informal settings,” she said. “There areso many times when I hear what a researcher is doing that couldapply to my patients, or what I’m seeing with patients that couldhave an impact on laboratory projects.”CTSA by the Numbers• 2,359: Outpatient visits• 310: Overnight research admissions• 15,000: Samples processed in laboratory• 139: Research projects• 35: Departments involved• 225: Principal Investigators who use theClinical Research Unit• 41: Refereed journal publications fromstudies done on the Unit12-month periodDr. Erzurum is well positioned to encourage that interactionas the Director of the Clinical Research Unit of the ClevelandClinical Science and Translational Consortium. The collaborativeis possible through a Clinical and Translational Science Award,a $64 million National Institutes of Health grant providingresources for the coordinated development of clinical andtranslational sciences. One of 38 academic health centerawards nationally, CTSA is a partnership of Cleveland Clinic,Case Western Reserve University, University Hospitals CaseMedical Center, MetroHealth Medical Center, and the LouisStokes Cleveland VA Medical Center.The Clinical Research Unit provides the equipment, nursingsupport and support staff for more than 200 investigatorscarrying out more than 125 clinical research projects. Mostsuch projects are NIH-supported and are under way atCleveland Clinic, from diabetes research and exercise studiesto storing and shipping samples and investigating acute heartattacks. W.H. Wilson Tang, MD, Cell Biology and ClevelandClinic’s Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, directs theinpatient research services, and Lara Danziger-Isakov, MD,MPH, Cleveland Clinic’s Pediatric Infectious Diseases, directsthe pediatric studies in the research unit.The services range from the ordinary (e.g., echocardiogramsof people’s hearts) to the extraordinary, such as “apheresisand elutriation” — collecting blood from volunteer donors andseparating out the billions of white blood cells, then returning thered blood cells to the volunteer. With the support of the CTSA,Peter Cohen, MD, formerly of Immunology, and ClemenciaColmenares, PhD, Cancer Biology and Co-Director of theInstitute’s Research Core Services, who leads the translationaltechnologies component of the CTSA at Cleveland Clinic,launched this new research service, in which healthy humanvolunteers undergo collection of their blood to obtain humancirculating cells, which are then separated into the variouscomponents for use by basic science researchers.16
Focusing on the patients of tomorrow FALL 2008“Bridging the gap between laboratory and clinical research isintegral to patient care, and it would be much more challengingto do without the CTSA,” said Dr. Erzurum, who credits RichardRudick, MD, for spearheading the application for the CTSA.Dr. Rudick is Vice Chair of Research at Cleveland Clinic’sNeurological Institute. All projects in the CTSA undergo reviewby the Protocol Review Committee, which is led by DavidVan Wagoner, PhD, Molecular Cardiology and Chair of thecommittee, and Bret Lashner, MD, Gastroenterology andHepatology, and Co-Chair of the committee.“Our Clinical Research Unit enables us to bring our research tothe patient in a larger way than before. It allows rapid translationof our findings in the lab to the patient. Our staff — led byCharlotte Bhasin, our unit administrator, and Kay Stelmach, ournurse administrator — is dedicated to helping the investigatorson our unit advance patient-oriented research,” Dr. Erzurum said.Just as important, the unit serves as an advocate for themembers of the public who volunteer for the various researchprojects. “Our participants are equal partners in the clinicalresearch enterprise. Without them, we couldn’t advance medicalcare, and in the CTSA structure, they are partners in the researchin the CTSA,” she said.As much as the Clinical Research Unit provides to investigators,Dr. Erzurum sees potential for growth.“We have a need to expand the clinical unit, in particular intonutritional and metabolic areas,” she said. “We are starting toorganize for the development of a nutritional research center tofocus on that facet of the disease process, which is so importantfor diabetes and obesity research. We have also begun to create aresearch participant membership that will allow greater and moremeaningful involvement of our volunteers in our ongoing studies,including the sharing of research findings.”Clinical ResearchUnit ResourcesThe Clinical Research Unit provides molecularbiology, specimen processing and analytical work.Its primary functions are to provide technicalsupport for sophisticated chemical analyses calledassays and to develop or validate new laboratorymethods. The unit provides staffing for specificlaboratory procedures.Specimen ProcessingThe unit performs minimal to complex specimenprocessing. Among its services are blood, serum,plasma or urine collection; highly consistent,project-specific processing; specimen shipping;and large-volume blood cell separation.Research AssaysThe unit can provide chemical analysis assaysthat offer a complete chemical analysis of bloodand the detection of antibodies or antigens, amongother services.Specimen StorageResearchers have access to a 4°C refrigerator, oneupright -20°C and one -70°C freezer for short-termspecimen storage. All refrigerators and freezers areequipped with centrally monitored alarm systemsfor efficient and accurate temperature control.Specimen ShipmentThe unit has the capability to ship ambient orfrozen specimens to other laboratories.17
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Fall 2008 - Cleveland Clinic Lerner Research Institute

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