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USF Diabetes Battle Plan Unveiled

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By ADAM EMERSON

aemerson@tampatrib.com

Published: November 14, 2008

TAMPA - University of South Florida leaders on Thursday unveiled an ambitious plan to capitalize on their success in their work to fight diabetes.

In the coming years, the university wants to open a diabetes clinical center, outpatient clinic and a research hospital.

The plan centers on the work of USF pediatrics professor Jeffrey Krischer, who has brought the university nearly $400 million to study the cause of, and find the cure for, Type 1 diabetes.

Krischer, who works with his team out of USF, has been orchestrating nearly every major effort to battle a disease that afflicts 3 million people in the United States. He has, however, bemoaned the fact that USF and Tampa lack the comprehensive clinical and research center to help diabetes victims locally.

"We are all here standing on the world stage in diabetes prevention and cure," Krischer told university trustees.

In July, Krischer won a $128 million National Institutes of Health grant to investigate new therapies that may arrest the progression of Type 1 diabetes, once known as juvenile diabetes. That came about a year after he received a $169 million federal grant to study what triggers the disease.

But federal grants alone can't sustain USF's ambitions, university leaders say.

The university has begun work on launching a clinical research center in its health complex on the north end of campus in which scientists not only will study what happens to diabetes sufferers, but also will provide clinical care. Krischer will hold the $1.4 million endowed chair for that center, and the university will begin recruiting scientists.

USF health sciences Vice President Stephen Klasko also says he's talking to donors to help back a potential outpatient clinic.

Reporter Adam Emerson can be reached at (813) 259-8285.

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