PROJECTS

Project 1:
Amino Acid Interrelations and Metabolism

Project 2:
Tissue-Specific Metabolic Response to Injury

Project 3:
Molecular Mechanisms of Burn-Induced Insulin Resistance

Project 4:
Muscle Wasting in Burns: the Role of Akt/PKB


TECHNOLOGY CORES

PET and µPET Facility

Spectroscopy Facilities


SUPPORT CORES

Human Studies Research

Administration


Copyright © 2004-2007 Massachusetts General Hospital
 
The Human Studies Core provides the MGH Burn Research Center with the clinical infrastructure for study design, accrual and analysis of data and samples from critically-ill burn patients and healthy volunteers. The core staff facilitates the complex human studies performed at each of our study locations: the Burn Centers at the Massachusetts General Hospital and the Shriners Hospital for Children, the MGH PET Camera Facility, the MGH general surgical units, and the MIT General Clinical Research Facility.

The Human Studies Core is responsible for the development and implementation of standard operating procedures (SOPs), recruitment and obtaining consent of subjects, collection and distribution of samples, record-keeping, and coordination with the subprojects. This core allows the human research performed in our Center to be conducted with remarkable accuracy, sensitivity, and reproducibility.

The Core acts most efficiently to prevent duplicate and unnecessary blood drawing and testing. To anticipate maximum coordination of research efforts and close cooperation among the project investigators, human study information obtained from our studies on the clinical units is effectively coordinated and organized within this core, thereby providing an efficient mechanism of data management.

Advancement from this core is the establishment and dissemination of guidelines, tools, and standard operating procedures (SOPs), which can be accessed and utilized by investigators in the field of burns and trauma. The study of burn-injured patients and healthy volunteers is essential to our understanding of the human response to injury. This activity requires careful oversight and quality control to maintain maximum safety and patient protection and to insure high-quality data collection.