The National Institutes of Health awarded ASU’s Biodesign Institute $5 million in federal funding to research possible treatments of Type 2 diabetes and to identify biomarkers within blood to predict cardiovascular disease.
Randall Nelson, director of the Molecular Biosignatures Analysis Unit at the Institute, will lead the four-year research initiative along with a team of diabetes specialists from both ASU and UA as well as Diabetes Program Director Dr. Peter Reaven of the Phoenix Veterans Affairs Health Care System.
“This is a multi-centered grant and Nelson and his group … developed a number of unique approaches to measuring potentially interesting important novel biomarkers for prediction of cardiovascular events in Type 2 diabetes,” Reaven said.
Biomarkers are molecules in the blood that signal the presence of a disease.
Diabetes currently affects about 8 percent of Americans, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. In 2007, $174 billion was spent on diabetes costs, according to the NIH. Diabetes is also known to increase the risk of a stroke and heart disease.
Associate Director of Communications at the Biodesign Institute Joseph Caspermeyer said diabetes presents a different situation because, “we started to think of it as a high blood sugar level disease, but it turns out that there’s another risk factor that develops along with it and that is heart attacks.”
Nelson’s team is hoping to resolve challenges in society and advance the health care system, Caspermeyer said.
Specifically, the team hopes to identify a developing heart attack in people who have Type 2 diabetes before it’s too late, Caspermeyer said.
“When you find something like that, not only can it be used to predict disease but it also maybe a potential drug target,” he said.
Each group or department of Nelson’s team will contribute in their unique ways, Reaven said.
Reaven’s contribution to the team will be clinically based, including patient recruitment and working directly with patients to collect samples.
Reaven’s specialty is in diabetes and cardiovascular diseases and he has worked on numerous projects developing identifying biomarkers with Nelson.
“(We) have been interacting on other projects previously so this was just a natural extension,” Reaven said. “(It seemed) to be a natural fit in expertise and interest that we have here.”
The NIH typically sends out a call for research proposals around the nation as part of a competitive application process for federal funding.
Caspermeyer said Nelson has a proven track record when it comes to diabetes research and technology, which is why the NIH awarded the grant to the University.
“I think one part is the science is really good and it has to be top-notch caliber to be selected,” he said.
Reach the reporter at sraymund@asu.edu
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