North Carolina Central University is committed to enhancing its growth, national and regional rankings, and brand by establishing new partnerships and expanding existing cooperative agreements. The Office of Partnerships and Cooperative Agreements helps in facilitating such alliances, and included below are a few standout examples of success.
The National Cancer Institute (NCI) has awarded one of two Comprehensive Minority Institution Cancer Center Partnership Grants in the nation to NCCU and the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center (LCCC). The NCI program grant—the largest in NCCU history, providing more than $7 million over five years—is designed to foster intensive collaborations between minority-serving institutions and NCI-designated Cancer Centers to further develop approaches to understand and reduce the significant disparities in cancer outcomes observed in minority and socioeconomically disadvantaged populations.
Led by M. Ricardo Richardson, PhD, director of the cancer program at NCCU's Julius L. Chambers Biomedical/Biotechnology Research Institute (BBRI), and Shelton Earp, MD, UNC Lineberger’s director, the grant will initiate a joint program to increase the number of undergraduate students from both NCCU and UNC-Chapel Hill pursuing careers devoted to causes and prevention of minority disparities. The grant will also help establish new junior cancer research faculty positions at NCCU, expand multidisciplinary research collaborations aimed at reducing cancer disparities between the two institutions, and consolidate community outreach and education programs.
This collaborative research program between North Carolina Central University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is relevant to alcohol-induced health disparities among African-Americans in its focus on understanding morbidity caused by alcohol abuse. Such health disparities are primarily attributable to increased severity of fetal alcohol toxicity; alcohol neurotoxicity; and alcohol-induced carcinogenesis, liver injury, and inflammation, and this collaborative program has research components addressing each of these pathologies. Within the program, integrated and focused research on the molecular mechanisms of alcohol pathology educates and involves future researchers in alcohol health disparities and furthers discoveries on mechanisms that may lead to cures.
Led by Drs. K. Sean Kimbro and Mildred Pointer, the NCCU NIMHD Exploratory Center of Excellence (P20) has been designated to be the NCCU Center for Translational Health Equality Research (CTHER). Established in June 2012, this center integrates and centralizes ongoing cardio-metabolic minority health and health disparities research into a single trans-disciplinary enterprise. CTHER develops effective partnerships with public and private organizations and communities to conduct basic and translational research leading to positive transformations in minority health.
The center is comprised of four cores: Administration, Research, Research Training and Education, and Community Engagement and Outreach.
BBRI investigators who study the roles of dietary calcium and steroid hormone receptors in hypertension, obesity, diabetes, renal failure, and liver pathology collaborate both with NCCU investigators in the Departments of Nursing, Public Health, Computer Science, and Education and with community organizations committed to serving the medical needs of minority populations. The Community Engagement and Outreach core conducts studies in rural NC communities with medically underserved minority populations. This core explores the role of factors such as community health-promoting infrastructure and interpersonal relationships on type 2 diabetes progression. It also actively engages a rural minority community in effective and sustainable activities for improving community health and disease management that inform and are informed by CTHER team health disparities research.
The National Institute for Alcohol and Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) has funded a U54 cooperative agreement between faculties of BBRI at NCCU and the Bowles Center for Alcohol Studies (CAS) at the UNC School of Medicine. The agreement is entitled “Mechanisms of Alcoholic Pathology." The objectives of this U54 Collaborative Minority Alcohol Research Center Development (CMARCD) partnership are as follows:
Ultimately, this grant will conduct, promote, support, and mentor research focused on mechanisms of alcohol pathology, thus creating an active and successful alcohol research program within BBRI that synergizes with UNC’s CAS to advance education and discovery.